While they watch sweeping changes brought about by bad news on the economy and free news online, career journalists themselves are refusing to go on the record about what is happening to their industry.

Chicago’s mega papers, the Tribune Company and Sun-Times News group, both in bankruptcies, have all laid off hundreds of journalists this year. News holes have shriveled. Sections, like the venerable Opinion Section of the Chicago Tribune, have disappeared. Reporters are pocketing their pink slips, packing up their Pulitzers and going home.

Charity case

Next week, Sen. John Kerry will wage a campaign to prolong the press as we know it with hearings on the Newspaper Revitalization Act, which would morph papers into non-profits like public broadcasting.  Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt and patrons could make tax deductible contributions. Newspapers no longer could make political endorsements, but could still report on politics.

In a letter to the "Boston Globe family," Kerry wrote an SOS for newspapers.

“America's newspapers are struggling to survive and while there will be serious consequences in terms of the lives and financial security of the employees involved, including hundreds at the Globe, there will also be serious consequences for our democracy where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount," Kerry wrote.

Not returning calls for comment

The publisher who now works as a school PR director didn’t return calls. A magazine editor chose to stay mum. An editorial manager took a pass. A managing editor shuddered at the thought of going public with thoughts about what it is like to call 30-year staffers into the office to deliver that final, dreaded blow.

For career journalists, it’s a whole new world – and not a kinder gentler one. “Eat what you kill” is how one former newspaper reporter describes today’s media milieu.

Before, she had a full-time job with relatively low -but steady –pay, good health insurance and a respected slot in the community.

Now, she gets a penny a hit. She can write whatever she wants, so long as it isn’t obscene. No copy editor is reviewing the work before it gets on the web. If there are any typos or fact problems, we can just hope nobody notices.

“Who’s going to spend four years in college for that?” she asks. “Journalists in the future will dwindle down to the least common denominator- people who are uneducated, unemployed and willing to work for next to nothing.”

Short and shallow

Analysts chalk up the newspaper’s demise to free Internet news and attention deficit issues among readers. Keep the copy to six or eight inches (about six paragraphs) and crank it out as fast as you can was the standing order in news rooms.

People don’t want to read long, in-depth stories about complicated issues, editors have been telling reporters over the last decade. Consumer research showed this.

Doesn’t waste time probing beneath what the authorities tell you. Just put it down. Readers don’t want to know if their politicians are corrupt or their environment is polluted, anyway.

Out of print

But not all consumers can RIP their breakfast read as carelessly as newsroom bosses.

News junkies run in her family, says Chris Book, in her 40's. She operates what she laughingly calls Pollyanna PR out of a living room office in Joliet.

 “Maybe someday they will find a gene that is predominant in people who could easily spend hours upon hours turning the pages of newspapers,” she quips.

Book kindles memories of her parents pouring over the daily newspapers. They’d share stories and comments with each other and the kids, too.  Her mom always encouraged Book and her siblings to take in news and features from afar and around town, she recalls. 

“It connected them to the world around them and in between them and it did the same for us,” she said.  “Personally and professionally, newspapers, to me, have been the link in the chain of connecting people, events, issues and ideas.”

Book worries about government officials running unchecked by local watchdogs. Losing veteran journalists who have had beats for years leaves an enormous void, she fears.

“What is to keep school administrators honest if no print reporter is in the room keeping tabs on meetings and decisions that affect taxpayers and students?” she wonders.

“ Reporters who hung out at the police stations and even local watering holes have, for decades, been the watchdogs and often heroes of our day in keeping readers informed and keeping elected officials, planners and leaders honest and on task.” 

Daily newspapers are mundane and regularly trivial, Book concedes. But, for her, they reflect the community's culture, its diversity, its depth or shallowness, she says.

 “It used to be that newspapers supported their community,” said one career reporter. “Now, the communities are going to have to support their newspapers if they are going to have one.”