Sadness, not surprise, followed announcements by traditional media such as the DAILY NEWS and COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW that there were layoffs. Now, we're puzzled that sports broadcaster ESPN, owned by Walt Disney, announced it is eliminating 300 to 400 jobs, some through layoffs, some through not filling them. It contends, reports NEW YORK Magazine, that the expense of acquiring the rights to broadcast games has risen. Thus the need for the cutbacks.
If popular, profitable niche player ESPN is reducing headcount, then all those in media or planning to enter media have to get it that there is no security in the industry. To paraphrase a Shakespeare history play, uneasy lies the head that is employed in the glam field of media.
Envy is probably the appropriate term to describe how those of us in less volatile lines of work like ghostwriting/speechwriting viewed careers in media. Those folks had daily bylines. They were interviewed or conducted interviews on television and online video. They traveled the world. They attended VIP events. And we toiled by our Microsoft Word, invisible, isolated, and not going very far from our home office.
Maybe access to glam is too high a price to pay in a dicey global economy disrupted by technology. One seems to become fodder for the bean counters.




