Seven months later: What's happened to Seattle P-I Journalists

In March, Hearst closed the 146-year-old Post-Intelligencer newspaper and dumped 140 of us onto the street in the depths of the recession.

Instead of filing stories, we filed for unemployment. Instead of interviewing politicians, we took classes in How to Interview for a Job. Instead of rushing to cover the next story, we became the story.

Almost 25,000 print journalists have lost their jobs in the last 12 months. Reporters who kept an eye on those with power and money. Who showed up at school board meetings and city council hearings. Who filed public disclosure requests and wrote stories about uncomfortable truths. Losing our jobs -- and for many us our careers -- isn’t just personal. The public is losing too.

Here’s what I found by surveying my former P-I colleagues recently. Seventy-one of the 140 who lost their jobs responded:

·      23 have new fulltime jobs for an employer, half working in journalism and the rest in corporate or nonprofit communications, business, etc.

·      3 are working part-time for an employer and 6 started their own businesses

·      18 are freelancing (blogs, photography) or working on journalism start-ups (Post-Globe, InvestigateWest) and collecting unemployment

·      14 are in school, including 10 who are also on unemployment. Studies include education, web design, marketing, paralegal, art

·       4 said a combination of unemployment/jobhunting/parenting while two retired and one has a journalism fellowship

These statistics do not include the 18 or so former P-I staff working at the online Seattle P-I.

Overall trends?

·      Economic hard times: Only one-third have found new fulltime jobs and most are earning far less than they did at the P-I. Five people said their new jobs have higher salaries while 5 said they’re earning about the same. The vast majority, whether working or not, are struggling to pay the mortgage, afford health care and stay afloat economically.

“Unemployment is immensely difficult…I feel like my experience and education was a waste of time and I feel betrayed by investing myself in a field that didn't give a damn.” (Christine Okeson, former P-I copy editor)

·      Say goodbye to paid journalism: Only 15 percent have found fulltime paid work in journalism. Another 25 percent are blogging, freelancing or working on journalism start-ups like Post-Globe or InvestigateWest for little or no money.

“I didn't realize how difficult it would be adjust to the solitude and isolation of working alone instead of in the newsroom. Nor did I expect that fulltime job prospects would be this grim.” (John Marshall, former P-I book critic)

“Freelancing is busy but may not be financially sustainable…I'm stunned and offended by the number of major businesses (wait -- including the online PI) who expect professionals to write for free…There are very few opportunities to do the sort of important work that the old P-I invested in, because it is expensive and unsexy. The point that it is important to society has become irrelevant. And I am no dinosaur - I am Twittering, Facebooking, and Flip video-ing along with the rest of the world.” (former P-I reporter)

·      Say hello to public relations, business, marketing or self-employment: Half of those who found new fulltime jobs are no longer in journalism. Most are doing communications for non-profits or corporations. Another group has started businesses – photography, communications consulting, etc.

“The job I found with Boeing is the best I've ever had, and I had a great job with the PI.” (James Wallace, former P-I aerospace reporter)

·      Just a job? Half of those who are employed say their job satisfaction is worse than the P-I while a third say it’s about the same. The rest are happier – most of them in non-journalism jobs.

“All told, I'd rather be a newspaper reporter than anything else.” (Mike Lewis, former P-I Under The Needle columnist)

·      New horizons: For a handful of people, losing their jobs was an opportunity to pursue their dreams – from returning to school to launching businesses to switching careers. Others mentioned finding a better work/life balance without the stress of daily deadlines.

“Life is very exciting, draining, scary. But it is freeing. I love learning, doing art. I feel I have received a huge gift from the universe. Knowing that financially we would be all right in a few years, would be great.” (Elana Winsberg, former P-I online designer)

·      Grieving the loss of the P-I:  Most said they miss the P-I newsroom with its special mix of collegiality and sense of mission. They miss the daily miracle of putting out a newspaper that served our community and made a difference.

“I really miss the camaraderie and familial atmosphere of a newsroom. In a nutshell, I'm in the real world now, and I don't like it.” (former P-I sports copy editor)

“I see so many gaps in news reporting these days that P-I reporters and editors would have been filling were we still around. The paper was far from perfect, but it made a difference.” (Lisa Stiffler, former P-I environmental reporter)

Help Wanted: Egg Donor with Nonprofit Resume?

"You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant" -- Arlo Guthrie, 1967

Make that Seattle Craig's List, circa 2009. Yup, right there in the Jobs section under the category for non-profit openings someone posted an ad for an egg donor this week. 

Not just your run-of-the-mill egg donor: a college-educated woman in her 20s with brown wavy hair, Scandinavian/English/Portugese descent -- and nonprofit job experience:

 "Hopeful egg recipient has a life-long love of helping others through her career in non-profit work and is hoping to find an egg donor with a similar background," the ad said, offering $5,000 plus medical expenses.

I have plenty of empathy for couples struggling with infertility. I know how devastating it can be. Suddenly everywhere you go you see pregnant bellies. Every month turns into a roller coaster. It's enough to rip your heart out.

But since when did a bent for a non-profit career reside in one's genes along with hair color? Seems to me nurture plays a bigger role than nature in the choice of a non-profit career. What we value as parents rubs off on our kids.

"We hope you can understand our desire to give birth to a child with some of the basic physical characteristics or talents that I might possibly have passed on to a child," the prospective mom wrote.

I understand that to a point. But isn't it a bit presumptuous to assume that if the egg donor is a social worker, Johnny will want to be too? 

What does it say about modern life that we want to order up children who not only look like us but choose the same careers?

One of the challenges of parenting is letting go of who you thought your son or daughter would be and seeing them as they are. 

One of a kind.

(Photo: by fdecomite/Flickr)

The Long Goodbye

 The seasons are shifting once more. Darkness falls earlier. The air has a bite and leaves turn crispy orange, maroon and lemon.

Spring had just begun when I walked out of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for the last time. Like so many of my colleagues, I was saying goodbye not just to my newspaper but to the career I had lived and breathed for two decades. The career that often demanded too much and paid too little but always stirred my passions.

So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that almost three seasons later I still feel the ache of that loss. It grips me at odd times, sneaking up when I least expect it. I'll be zoning out on the bus on my way to my communications job downtown when I look up and there it is: the big, blue P-I globe still turning. I duck my head as tears fill my eyes.

Or I meet someone new and she asks, "What do you do?" And I hesitate -- not because my current job isn't challenging but because it feels like a new pair of shoes that I haven't broken in.

Or my investigative instincts kick in when someone tells me about something that's just plain wrong. And I try to explain why the chance of finding a reporter who can look into it is about as likely as a return of hot type.

It is time to move on. But we must also live with what we've lost.

(Photo: by geishaboy500/Flickr)

Spot.Us: The future of investigative journalism?

A creative, trendy experiment in citizen journalism called Spot.Us grabbed headlines last week. The latest buzz came from the Knight Foundation's decision to lavish $340,000 on the Bay-area start-up to help it expand to L. A. in partnership with USC-Annenberg's School of Journalism.

The way Spot.Us works is that anyone can pitch an idea for an investigative story on the website and seek donations. When enough pledges come in (the site averages $40 per donation) the project is a go. Stories can be sold to mainstream media or run on the website. Spot.us has produced some lively coverage of flaws in police oversight, recycling and city budget problems. 

Lord knows we need new ideas in journalism these days. Anything is worth a try, including crowd-funded stories. But the truth is that this model isn't the magic cure for what ails us. The numbers just don't add up.

Spot.us raised just $40,000 from 800 people in its first 10 months of operation, enough money to pay for 30 stories, according to its website.

Thirty stories? That works out to be $1333 per project. And that equals a) slave labor or b) an investigation at warp speed.

When I worked as an investigative reporter at the Seattle P-I, we shelled out $1333-plus just to get key state documents copied. Or to do our own testing of tainted products. Or to hire sign language interpreters to help interview rape victims. Or to pay an attorney to review a story so we didn't get sued.

In the end, my newspaper went under because the advertising (read: money) that subsidized great journalism vanished -- not because we ran out of ideas. Sustainable investigative journalism is expensive.

So the next time an academic or Web guru touts Spot.Us as the future of investigative journalism, I hope someone will remind them: The emperor has no clothes -- and certainly won't be able to afford any in the near future.

(Photo: by stringer_bel/Flickr)

The Sentence No One Deserves

The women were reluctant to talk when I finally tracked them down. Most just wanted to forget what had happened at SeaTac federal detention center. A few decided that speaking up was worth the risk.

 "I went through so much suffering, so much humiliation," one young woman from a Mexican border town told me in an interview for a Seattle P-I investigative story. She was just 19 when the guard sexually assaulted her.  "They have the power to do anything to us."

The guards who I wrote about preyed on those who were most vulnerable: younger, illegal immigrants and non-U.S. citizens facing deportation. Those who had no hope of fighting back.

They knew what everyone on the inside knows: that when it's prisoner vs. guard, the guard always wins. That less than 10 percent of sexual abuse complaints ever get prosecuted.

Three months ago, a federal panel that spent six years investigating sexual assault in our nation's federal, state and county lock-ups released a report about just how widespread this problem is. They toured the country and listened to story after story. Their report called for better oversight and lots of changes, from more careful screening of guards to reforming the law to give victims more legal options.

I wanted to call up every woman who poured her heart out to me two years ago and tell them the news. I wanted to write about it. But by then my newspaper had been closed and I was too busy looking for work. I promised myself I'd come back to the story when my life settled down.

Attorney General Eric Holder has a year to decide whether to turn the panel's recommendations into regulations that prisons and jails will have to follow -- or risk losing federal funding. Justice demands no less.

(Photo: by erokCom)

Full Moon

There's a lovely spot I like to walk my dog, a strip of green perched on cliffs overlooking the majesty of Puget Sound. Rain or shine, the sprawling vista of light playing on ocean never fails to inspire.

 But this summer, something is missing: I have yet to hear the delightful songs of the seals who used to hang out on rocks offshore and yelp like coyotes at a full moon. Have they moved on? Or is it a temporary hiatus?

As I meandered home tonight in the brilliant moonlight, I couldn't help but think about other voices that have gone silent in recent months. Although it's been almost six months, I still miss the Seattle P-I and the talented bunch of colleagues who made it special. The P-I's globe keeps turning but its heart is gone.

Many of the P-I's best reporters are now working for nothing, launching their own blogs, like Andy Schneider's Cold Truth, and Rebekah Denn's Eat All About It, or collaborating on nonprofit journalism websites like PostGlobe and InvestigateWest. These are noble causes deserving of our support. But they don't put food on the table yet.

I have had to take a different path, sizing up my skills and seeking work outside of journalism for the first time in 20 years. It's been a roller coaster few months. And I am grateful that my search has ended for now.

On Tuesday, I start a full-time job as communications manager for an environmental project protecting the Arctic Ocean in Canada and the U.S. It is very different work. Instead of digging for the truth and putting stories on the front page, I am helping an organization advocate for policies that will ease the toll that climate change and industrialization are taking on the people and whales and walrus who populate the north.

A bittersweet time. Have I moved on? Or is it a temporary hiatus?

(Photo: by Eggybird)

Bad Boys of Ballard

Every neighborhood has its bad boys. The ones who crank up their music until the wee hours or toss trash on your lawn as they cruise by.

And then there's the really wild stuff.

I saw my neighbor standing in the street staring at his roof the other day. This is a guy who only leaves his computer/house when there's a good reason -- like going to work or buying groceries. Something must be wrong.

"What's up?" I asked him.

"Take a look," he said, pointing to his green, asphalt-tiled roof. "Over there by the chimney, and over there. A bunch of tiles are missing."

"That's odd," I said. "It hasn't even been windy lately."

The first time he and his wife noticed a bare patch they couldn't figure it out. And then more appeared. How annoying.

"You'll never guess who did it," he said. "We caught them one morning."

The culprits? Crows. A gang of big, bored, noisy young crows are cruising our neighborhood looking for action. And prying tiles off the occasional roof for kicks.

My neighbor, who is now getting estimates to have the roof fixed, is not amused.

"They're like juvenile delinquents," he complained.

Yup. Move over raccoons. Knocking over garbage cans in the alley at night is kid stuff. A new gang is in the hood.

(Photo: by Shikeroku)