A year that has healed some wounds

A year ago today, I woke up and got physically ill. Then I drove to my office to turn in my laptop computer and employee badge, ending a 29-year career in daily newspapers.

On the way out the building, I grabbed some old posters the company had offered – castoffs just like me and the scores of other employees who lost their jobs as of Oct. 1, 2012, as part of the Newhouse/Advance Publications shift from print journalism.

This morning, I awoke with a song in my heart, celebrating my first year as a freelance journalist.

My daughter commented about how less grumpy I was in the morning, versus a year earlier. My mother has said I seem less angry.

Despite the struggle that has been the last year – or perhaps in large part because of it – I am happier.

For six years or more, it seems like my family and I have lurched from one disaster to another – some natural, some financial and some resulting from my wife and I both having careers then in a crumbling industry.

When Anna and I were hired in 2000, The Birmingham News prided itself as one of the last of the cradle-to-grave employers. Newhouse, the owners, preferred to keep employees from organizing into unions by offering guild-style pay and benefits, as well as a pledge never to lay off employees from the daily newspaper due to the economy or change in technology.

But the newspaper industry has been mired in a paradigm shift for decades, one of the many changes the Internet has brought to our world. Newspaper revenues dropped, first affecting publicly traded companies whose executives vainly tried to maintain rich dividends and profit-margins in a shifting economy.

Privately held media companies like Newhouse were shielded for years. I recall that when Anna and I were about to buy our first house in 2002, the latest set of layoffs was being announced at our old employer (owned by a publicly-traded company) while we at The News got the latest in a series of letters reminding us of “The Pledge.”

But by 2008, a variety of forces brought reality crashing down on Newhouse employees. Thus began the death of a thousand cuts – wage freezes, furloughs, a pension freeze, reduced sick leave, benefit cuts like parking and insurance subsidies – accompanied by multiple buyouts of diminishing value that always carried the threat of layoffs if financial targets were not reached.

As the newsroom shrank, demands increased on those who remained. This was accompanied by a mad scramble to establish relevance in the modern Web-based world without any clear vision of how to accomplish that goal – but still underscored with the threat of job loss for those who could not keep pace or meet the standards set by ever-shifting measurement tools.

Anna got out, putting her considerable skills to better use as point person on healthcare reform for Viva insurance company. But I tried to hang on in newspapers, preferably until I hit my retirement age of 67 that also would mark my youngest child’s fourth year in college.

Newhouse provided notice it was killing “The Pledge,” which was followed at some papers by a publisher purge. The guillotine fell in late May 2012, when Newhouse announced that Birmingham and its other Alabama newspapers would shift to three-day print publication and a more youthful, 24/7 emphasis on the Web platform, al.com. Massive layoffs would accompany that change.

But the specific heads didn’t roll until mid-June, touching off an agonizing period of weeks while people accepted their announced fate of either being retained or cast aside.

Those of us who were told we didn’t have the tools for the new world order were asked to stay on until Oct. 1, 2012, which may go down as the world’s longest layoff. Things got awkward as the transition neared – new employees came and got training and new equipment, departing employees were displaced to rearrange the office furniture and as the transition neared, vacation leave for departing employees was denied while the folks remaining took some time off.

I will always be thankful, however, for how we were treated financially. When the Birmingham Post-Herald closed eight years ago, there was no lay-off period and no severance. People on vacation learned they had no job awaiting them back home. One guy called in with a story to file, but was told there was no paper to print it.

Instead, we who were laid off at The News got paid for that “world’s longest layoff” period, some 15 weeks or so. We also got severance pay based on longevity. In my case that provided paychecks past the end of the year, allowing me to get established in my freelance work.

As a consumer, I miss having a daily local newspaper. As a journalist I mourn for an industry, and its audience, that no longer has the time or sufficient resources to study an issue in depth and present it in a compelling manner. As someone who got into daily newspapers with the goal of providing the information needed for an informed electorate, I am concerned about the increasing superficiality across the news industry for coverage on a local, state, national and international level.

I dearly miss being a daily newspaper reporter and the depth and storytelling opportunities presented by my favorite beat, the court system. It was a large part of who I am, and some days I’m still angry that was taken from me. And I regret I never was able to reach my professional goal of becoming a full-time food writer exploring how to live to eat and eat to live.

But I have thoroughly enjoyed my work over the past year, working on legislative affairs materials for a local hospital system and helping author and edit The New Politics of Judicial Elections, a national report on judicial campaign financing that is soon to be released. I maintain a presence in the Birmingham News and al.com through monthly restaurant reviews. I plan to expand my client base soon, or bow to certain realities.

It’s been hard work with some mighty long hours as multiple freelance deadlines overlapped. Most of the work has been done in my basement office, which I have dubbed “The Cave.” To fit in family duties, this troll often starts work at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m.

But I’ve had the joy of working for Alabama Possible, formerly the Alabama Poverty Project, as moderator of a talk on race, poverty and justice with former Judge Scott Vowell and noted lawyer J. Mason Davis. I was able to do a little publicity for my church centennial.  I got to help a high-school buddy out with some copy for his online organics business, Safe Organics.

I’ve gotten to spend more time with my children, especially during this past summer’s “Camp Daddy” weeks. I have the flexibility to do even more to help my family. I hope I’ve become a better husband.

Sure, in some ways we’ve still got the proverbial foot on a banana peel. I’m less financially secure than I was two years ago today, when the thought of squeezing out more years of my daily newspaper career seemed plausible.

But I am more secure than I was a year ago today, amid the uncertainty of starting all over in a market crowded with talented displaced journalists.

I have a year of accomplishment under my belt. And a smile on my face.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings.