American Publishing in Decline

This situation makes me cry. I have been a subscriber of Newsweek, BusinessWeek, and Los Angeles Times for decades.

A few years ago, in 2008, there was a columnist in BusinessWeek magazine who wrote about the decline in the print media and how it would affect even some of the largest news outlets. That was when BusinessWeek was owned by McGraw-Hill. The magazine was sold to Bloomberg LP in October 2009. Bloomberg has made the magazine flourish if size of the weekly is an indicator. Perhaps that is one of the exceptions. Since Bloomberg is privately held there are no pubic reports on its performance.

Meanwhile newspapers have not done too well. The Graham family had owned both Newsweek and the Washington Post. Newsweek stopped publication and the Washington Post was bought by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. That makes the paper privately owned too.

My home town newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, owned by Tribune Publishing in Chicago, is reducing its staff by 50 or more persons this month. The reductions include significant editors and station managers. Among those being given buyout are the main politics editors for City Hall and California, the bureau chiefs in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas and London, all of the obituary writers, most of the “backfield” editors who handle national and foreign stories, the top editors of features and Sunday Calendar, the editor in charge of Column One stories, the wine columnist, the editor in charge of editing standards, as many as a half dozen photographers, at least that many copy editors, and many more in various positions. Sports columnist Bill Dwyer and general things about Los Angeles columnist Sandy Banks are among the leading writers that will be gone. The Tribune Company has put their printing plant near the downtown area up for sale. Will there be a newspaper after all this is done?

I love the internet but the damage it has brought to news publications has been devastating.

Buy-Outs, Forced Retirement and Age Discrimination

Your employer is in financial difficulty and needs to find a way of saving cash until there is a recovery.

If you work for a newspaper or magazine you are in an industry that is in serious decline then recovery is in doubt. The Washington Post seems to have recovered thanks to a purchase by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. BusinessWeek magazine was bought by Michael Bloomberg and is thriving. Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report are gone. Tribune Publishing Company that owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers is in dire straits. The Los Angeles Times is currently attempting to offer buy-outs to their staff. Sports writer Bill Dwyre, a gray-haired man with years of experience and probably high pay just announced his retirement. Other outstanding columnists with that paper are probably also going to take their leave.

General Motors and Ford Motor Company both went through some very difficult economic times as have many other companies.

In every instance they all followed the same path. Cut the high cost employees and reduce the pay to the remaining employees. I know people who were part of the buy-out, those who faced the reduced pay, and those who were simply laid-off. I was party to that situation more than once.

The issue for those losing their jobs is their age. Once you are older, 55 or older, obtaining another job at the same pay as was previously received is difficult and in most cases impossible.

Age discrimination is rampant and impossible to prove. “Age discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) less favorably because of his or her age. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) only forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older.” That is the statement posted on the EEOC on their web site.

From Forbes magazine dated January 31, 2014

The Ugly Truth About Age Discrimination (abridged)

“So then the headhunter said something that took my breath away,” said my caller, Philip.

“He told me that his client looked at my resume and said it looked great, but then he found my LinkedIn profile and decided I’m a little long in the tooth for the job.”

I was silent. That took my breath away, too.

“Long in the tooth?” I asked. “As in old?”

“Exactly,” said Philip. “The headhunter actually told me that the client said I was too old for the job. I asked him if that was illegal – I’m pretty sure it is – and he said that the client’s view is that if they don’t interview me, I’m not a candidate, so it’s not discrimination.”

“That’s false,” I said, but even as I said it, I knew that it doesn’t make any difference.

What is Philip going to do – sue the employer he never met because a third-party recruiter told him that one hiring manager made an inappropriate comment? So-called Failure to Hire cases are notoriously hard to bring and even harder to prove. As long as the organization ends up hiring someone who is qualified for the job, how could Phil ever prove that he was rejected because of his age? It’s not as though the organization is going to publish the new hire’s age for all the other candidates to see.

Age discrimination is everywhere. I hear more examples of age discrimination than I hear about sex discrimination, racial discrimination and every other kind put together. I expect that’s because some employers believe that older workers aren’t as nimble or perhaps aren’t as easy to train. Some of them undoubtedly worry that an older person is necessarily overqualified, and thus likely to bolt the minute a better job comes along.

I was there too. At the age of 60 in an interview the president of the company, he asked me if I was a grandfather. My answer was no and that was accurate. The thought running through my head was I would not be obtaining this job. To my surprise I did receive the job offer. I went on to two promotions proving that older employees can thrive. Could I have brought a successful suit against that employer? There was no proof that the question was asked.

I know of no solution. Businesses thrive, businesses shrivel, life goes on. As the population ages the issue of age discrimination will fade away.

Elected to Office but Unaware and Really Don’t Care

Inside the beltway: Is your representative aware of happenings in the world?

As reported in the Los Angeles Times

A bipartisan group of senators is seeking a federal investigation into alleged abuses in a popular visa program that has been linked to layoffs of U.S. workers in favor of cheaper foreign labor, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

“We are concerned about recent information that has come to light regarding the abuse of the H-1B visa program by Southern California Edison (SCE) and other employers to replace large numbers of American workers,” wrote Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who led the bipartisan group.

All of these senators are in league because they all know they must show concern for their constituents. This is a case of crocodile tears for those who are have lost their job or about to experience the same fate as Edison employees. Our free enterprise system says employers have every right to lower all their costs no matter who is impacted. Bank and technology companies are two of the most obvious adopters of the programs to cut labor costs. The shock is that it has taken this long for our senators to become aware of the outsourcing of American jobs. Maybe it’s not such a shock. After all some senators deny having ever used e-mail.

One must ask, where have these senators been? Haven’t they had at least one situation when they needed telephone help from a company and been transferred to a help line in India or the Philippines? Wait perhaps it is accurate to say they have been unaware. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday March 8 said has never, ever sent an email.

As reported in the New York Times

Nor does Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “Maybe once every four months, I do one email,” he said, with evident relish. “I like to communicate by talking directly to people. I find it’s an important part of humanity to understand not just the words that are said, but how they’re said, the tone they’re said in, the speed they’re said with.”

Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and longtime former Hill staff member, recalled that one of his bosses, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, could not use his BlackBerry “if his life depended on it.”

Luddite: One who fears technology (or new technology, as they seem pleased with how things currently are…why can’t everything just be the same?)