another career bites the dust

The newest and the oldest employees of Life magazine were fired last night. When I, the oldest, confronted the editor he said he had no idea we had been fired, that the office manager must have decided. Yes, friends, this was a dream—Life itself got fired nine years ago now—but it bears a strong relation to waking life.
Journosaurus, as my friend Ed has dubbed us, along with subspecies reportosaurus and photosaurus, is now Journosaurus, wrecks, tottering around on its last lizard legs.
Two friends who recently had to travel to Washington D.C. and Albany (respectively) from New York, made it in day trips, because their news organizations (one radio, one TV) would no longer pay for a hotel. The last magazine I did a free-lance piece for just went down the tubes (yes, I got paid). Everyone I know who works in print goes to work wondering if they'll still have a job at the end of the day, and that goes for the most venerable of publications (Tribuneodon comes to mind). The New York Times company announced that their revenues went down by nearly half in the most recent quarter and that they're putting up their new hq for sale. I am freely prophesying that we will see the death of many of these dinosaurs this year.
The reasons are twofold:
No ads.
No readers.
Think of all the mischief all these unemployed journalists can get up to. Seriously, though, You should write a book!