Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Connect the Dots

Day 22 - Photo 22. John Murphy's a sportswriter. He covers high school sports for our newspaper and by most accounts, one of the best. I found out he was leaving when I looked over at his desk and the only thing left, besides him for the moment, were push pins. I found myself staring at the pins and playing a mental game of connect-the-dots.

I tried to make some sense of what's happening to newspapers and the way we do business, or don't do business. In the past two years I've seen a lot of good people go. They were laid off, quit, forced out, snuck out or ran out. As a "middle manager" I have to speak both languages. I try to keep it upbeat without lying to anyone and yet, keep my guys out of the office and "below the radar."

And as I listen to the industry rhetoric on "what we're forced to do to survive"... all I can think of are those journalists and photojournalists who didn't survive.

I'm still playing connect-the-dots, trying to make sense of it.

5 comments:

Andrew Christopherson said...

Love the lines in this shot.

tony said...

i hope this doesn't mean what i think it means. even though i can't see murph's face in this shot, having known the man i can still really "see" him. salinte mhath to my irish brother, sometimes thousands sail by one.

cheryl said...

What a great way to really illustrate the state of the news business. I am also concerned and sad about the path newspapers are on. It seems to be going the way of many businesses that are being taken over by "outsiders" who don't understand that the professionals know best.

Pogue Mahone said...

The Sun sports department in Ontario was just too damned far from Killarney's, so I'll be walking on the sunny side of the street at the Press-Enterprise, starting Tuesday.

Anonymous said...

Great shot. Great blog.