From Editor to Auditor: A CN Story

One thing I like about Facebook is being able to keep up with old colleagues from the Courier News. They post about weddings, new babies, job searches and somewhat surprisingly, a wide variety of athletic accomplishments. Recently a former editor announced his departure from journalism in favor of becoming an auditor, a transition that to many made a lot of sense in light of the much-reported decline of the newspaper industry.

This individual came to the Courier News as an intern in 1993 and stayed on for six years, rising through the ranks to assistant managing editor. He was the deputy managing editor at a Westchester newspaper when he left the news biz, having earned an MBA in Business Administration and headed for prestigious financial firm.

When he was at the Courier News, circulation was around 50,000. In March 2012, it was 15,533 Monday through Saturday and 20,165 on Sundays.

News, or what passes for it nowadays, is more likely to reach the consumer through a mobile phone or tablet than through television or the print media. The newspaper industry is still struggling to adapt to readers' new habits by developing "platforms" of information, but a lot of it is more lifestyle "content" than old-fashioned news. Things that used to make Page One - a new school superintendent or a big budget gap, for example - may not even get covered. Reader-generated content is fair game even for A-1 over the fold sometimes, and food and drink stories take up many column inches.

Former colleagues called the editor's decision a loss to journalism and wondered how such a talented and dedicated newsman could just leave it all behind. Older colleagues who knew the heady days of breaking big stories were especially saddened. But hard-hitting news is awash nowadays in a sea of what used to be called "community news," a spaghetti dinner at the firehouse or a marathon for charity. Maybe over the past 19 years the industry's direction made a change in profession a very logical move for someone needing to earn a living for another quarter-century or so.

The worrisome thing for some of us is who will keep the public informed of what decisions are being made that will fundamentally affect our hometowns? The experiments in hyperlocal coverage that were launched in the past few years are now suffering the same pressures as the so-called legacy media, trying to get more work out of smaller staffs and hoping to make up the difference with contribution from readers.

As always, Plaintalker welcomes your comments.

--Bernice