John Curley's Flickr farewell

John Curley, deputy managing editor at the San Francisco Chronicle has taken a buyout (or whatever else you want to call it). He posted his farewell on his flickr page and it has drawn some great comments. Sure it is heartbreaking in the way that all newspaper layoffs are -- and it seems our hearts are breaking far too frequently these days.

What motivated me to post it here though, was a comment deep in the thread. The commenter advises college media for a living and makes the point that the advertising base has come view the industry as less powerful. I tend to think it is no small way because of all the ink the industry has been giving itself over cuts, competition, audience fragmentation, etc.

I've been a little shocked at how the industry is wallowing in its demise right in the news hole. Journalists are a gloomy lot, sometimes the only humor that survives is gallows humor. But the sheer volume of coverage devoted to failing newspapers by newspapers is astounding. And I am certain it is helping to accelerate the demise and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

By focusing the stories on Wall Street issues -- stagnant stock prices, aggressive expense trimming, layoffs, corporate deals and M&A -- journalists haven't given the balanced view: Newspapers are still insanely strong in their marketplaces. All media consumption is in flux as audiences experiment with new technology and sample new content on new platforms, but newspapers still reach a large and highly valuable audience both in their traditional print and online products. And despite any natural erosion, the newspaper audience is still more concentrated and much larger than we would be led to believe by all the doom and gloom stories.

So, as commenter Kathy hints, what these intrepid journalists have succeeded in doing is influencing advertisers into thinking that newspapers are less influential.

And now we don't know what to do with ourselves, except give a *hug* on John Curley's flickr page.