:: suzanne yada ::

Trying to nail down specific operating costs from one newspaper is next to impossible. That information, naturally, is proprietary and confidential, as I came to find out in my handful of phone calls. But that doesn’t help anyone who is trying to analyze a newsroom’s business plan from afar. I know I will not be hired as an accounting consultant any time soon, but I really want to understand just how tough it is to survive as a newspaper in 2008. Are these massive layoffs necessary? Where else could be cut before personnel have to go?

I shot an email to Paul Kauppila, a reference librarian that works specifically with the school of journalism here at SJSU. The resources he pointed me to were invaluable (a list of which I will post PDQ), and I ended up crawling on my hands and knees bookhunting through the section of the library that dealt with newspaper issues.

I found something.

(more…)

My major may be journalism here at SJSU, but my minor is business, because I realize a little too well that if you want to make it in this tough working climate, you can’t rely on your “hirable” skills. News flash: no one is hiring. You have to be innovative and entrepreneurial. I know next to nothing about the business side of the journalism world, which is why I chose my minor.

So in the accounting class required for my minor, I’ve been asked to write a paper on anything my pretty little heart desired, as long as it had something to do with accounting. Naturally, I pick the future of the journalism industry, and in particular newspapers.

I just “finished” the paper and turned it in, but it is in no way finished. I have more stuff to find out and more resources than I know what to do with (with the help of my new BFF, the journalism department’s dedicated librarian). So I want to start a series of blog posts, adding to the cacophany of already-established journalism bloggers who write about the future of journalism.

But here I want to emphasize hard numbers above lofty ideals, because frankly hard numbers scare me but that’s what we all need to look at. Journalists and math tend to go together like oil and water, but it’s the math that’s needed and sorely missing from the online resources I found. I suck at math, too, but I’m willing to push the data and discussions in a cohesive place and open it for discussion.

So I hope this works, and I hope this discovery process helps others too. Let me know if you know of any resources.