People always talk about the dying newspaper industry, but no one ever does anything about it. Apparently, complaining about job cuts while reading the news free online isn???t enough.
Roy Peter Clark at Poynter claims it is our duty to buy the actual paper:
And now I pose this challenge to you: It is your duty as a journalist and a citizen to read the newspaper???emphasis on paper, not pixels ??? Until we create some new business models in support of the journalism profession, we’ve got to support what we have, even as we create and perfect online versions that may one day attract the advertising dollars and other revenues we need to do what we do well.
That???s like being told to floss your teeth for the good of Johnson & Johnson.
We happen to buy the paper several times a week, let???s be real here: A business model that depends on people???s goodwill to pay for something they can get for free has no chance of universal buy-in.
The only reason most of you visit Poynter’s website is to troll through Jim Romenesko’s blog link dump. Hey, we do too! (Where do you think half our stories come from?)
But did you know Poynter, the “the number one journalism site in the industry,” also has a job posting board, like Mediabistro’s, only cheaper? (Seventy-five dollars to MB’s $279. Ouch.)
We had nearly forgotten about it — until we posted a job opening on JournalismJobs.com (in case you hadn’t heard, Jossip is hiring!). It took about a half hour between the job listing going live on JournalismJobs before our inbox was stuffed with a note from Poynter’s director of biz development Colleen Eddy — asking us to use their job listing service.
And we thought it was Andy Serwer’s day for poaching.