Hard Times In Media Land

It was announced Friday that a half million jobs were lost in the month of November alone, due to mergers, closings and cutbacks at the companies that still exist.

Unless you're one of the half million who found this piece of news out on their own, chances are you heard about it through the mediums of print, broadcast, or the Internet. And chances are real good that there will soon be fewer people getting that information to you.

In the Twin Cities alone, changes in the media landscape are widespread.

• Avista Capital Partners, owners of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, have announced another round of layoffs. They've already dropped a magazine aimed at affluent readers. With reports circulating that the Tribune Company (which owns several newspapers and TV stations across the country) is about to file for bankruptcy, some folks are wondering why the Strib doesn't do the same thing instead of floundering around.
• KSTP, the local ABC affiliate, is dropping 17 employees. That includes reporter Kristi Piehl, who gained some national pub for her coverage last spring of the "Smiley Face Killer" story. For a station that airs six hours of local news a day and bills its entire operation as 5 Eyewitness News (as if Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa were an anchor team), this kinda stretches things to the limit, doesn't it?
• NBC station KARE, in a directive from owner Gannett, plans to cut more staff if some workers nearing retirement age don't take a buyout.
• The stations of CBS Radio Minnesota (WCCO-AM, WLTE-FM, and KZJK-FM) whacked 14 employees, and have asked some of their big-name air talents to take pay cuts. One of the unfortunate ones was WCCO morning sports anchor Dan TerHaar, who still draws a paycheck as the TV voice of the Minnesota Wild.
• KSTP-AM let midday personality Tommy Mischke go, though it wasn't really an economy move. They never did figure out what to do with Mischke, whose quirky talent is better suited for late nights instead of the lunchtime crowd.

The main reason for all of this cutting back is that most advertisers have moved to the Internet, which is where the people who still have money are going. Classified ads in the newspaper, for example, have taken a major hit. If you've been trying to find a job, you have no doubt noticed that the Sunday "Help Wanted" section has gone on a starvation diet. It's the size of the comics section now.

With media outlets teetering on the financial brink, it raises a serious question: How are we going to get our news in the future? Unless you have a laptop or mobile phone, you can't curl up with a cup of coffee and read the online edition of the latest newspaper or magazine. And unless you subscribe to cable or satellite, the networks and local stations aren't going to interrupt programming every time a disaster happens in the world. But they will tell you what Britney Spears had for breakfast this morning.

If people can't afford to be well-informed, then let the dumbing down of America begin.