After 17 years at The Sacramento Bee, reporter Andy Furillo is a self-described “old timer.” Few would argue The Bee’s right to the same title—with over 150 years under its belt, it’s a well-established newspaper. 

Recent layoffs and cutbacks at The Bee, however, have once comfortable  reporters worried about their jobs. Even more frightening  to staff members are the economic problems facing journalism as a whole. In a struggling economy, the last thing a newspaper needs is the rise of a more accessible, cheaper competitor—online journalism. 

Print Journalists

Bob Rudy, Paul Bauman, and Andy Furillo are stuck in the same boat. Each has over 30 years of experience in journalism, and each is employed at The Bee. Each of them will be enduring significant changes made by the managerial end of The Bee staff. 

Rudy, an assistant sports editor, said he feels concerned about his and his coworkers’ situation.

“There’s a possibility that we may face furloughs in the second half of the year,” Rudy said.

Along with these temporary leaves of absence from employment, staff members have been let go to cut costs. 

“The Bee recently laid off 29 people in the newsroom. Those who remained, including me, took  six percent pay cuts,” Bauman said.  

“It’s hard to see people that you’ve worked with for years get laid off,” Furillo said. 

Rudy, Bauman, and Furillo all have children at the school. Seniors Sarah Rudy, Claire Bauman, and Andy Furillo Jr. will graduate in June. Their oncoming graduation signals an even greater challenge for their parents—affording college tuition. 

The possibility of sudden cutbacks and firings is scary.

“Beyond [cutbacks], it is difficult for me—a journalist, not an economist—to know. All I can say is that I certainly hope there will not be more,” Rudy said. 

The unpredictable future has led some to plan for the worst.

“I plan to stay in journalism, either print or online, for as long as possible,” Bauman said. “However, I’ve made a lot of good contacts in professional tennis that I hope to fall back on, if necessary.”

Bauman is not alone. Rudy has done some thinking about losing his job. His plans, however, are not as clear-cut.

“[Journalism] is my chosen profession for a reason. If I am forced to look in a different direction, I will—to tweak the aphorism—fall off that bridge when I get to it,” Rudy said.

Furillo is convinced The Bee isn’t going out of business anytime soon. 

“I’m going to be here for a long time to come, unless I hit the lottery and win a billion, which is unlikely, in that I don’t play the lottery,” Furillo said. 

Problems Posed by Online Journalism

Online newspapers have lots of benefits for readers—free content, constantly updated stories, and unlimited space.

Yet along with all these positives are a host of negatives and hindrances. 

Elise Craig, ’02, and Tim Grieve, ’82, are alumni with a lot of journalistic experience. 

At SCDS Craig was on the Octagon for three years and was editor-in-chief as a senior. She then worked on The Hoya, Georgetown University’s student newspaper, for four years. 

After graduating, Craig worked for a year at Washingtonpost.com. She is currently enrolled at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, from which she will graduate  with a master’s in 2010.

Grieve said he’s been “hooked on journalism since [he] first set foot in the Octagon room more than 30 years ago.” In 1982 he was editor-in-chief. He worked on the Stanford Daily for four years, eventually becoming the editor-in-chief there too. 

After graduating from Stanford, Grieve worked as a news and feature reporter at The Bee for six years. And yet in 1992, after all that hard work and time, he “gave up on journalism.” 

“I was ready to move on from The Bee, but I couldn’t get a job anywhere else. I didn’t understand it at the time, but we were in the midst of a recession. If I’d stuck it out a year or two, I probably would’ve gotten another job at another newspaper. But I didn’t,” Grieve said.

After attending Georgetown Law School and practicing law for six years, Grieve wanted back into the journalism world. He signed on with Salon.com at the tail end of the first big “Internet boom.”

In 2008, Politico.com offered Grieve a job as its congressional bureau chief. He currently works as assistant managing editor of news, supervising more than a dozen reporters and editing stories for the Politico Website and newspaper.

Both Craig and Grieve say they’re worried about the future.

“It’s a very scary time to be a journalist, but this is pretty much the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do,” Craig said. 

Craig said she probably learned the most during her year at the Post.com. 

“When you work at an online paper, stories get changed and updated every five minutes,” Craig said. 

For readers, this is an edge, as they no longer have to wait for the next day in order to receive updates. 

For journalists, it can be a hassle. Most reporters equate online journalism to an “eternal deadline.” 

Beyond the constant deadline lies online journalism’s greatest weakness—free access to almost all content. 

“Newspapers basically led to their own demise by offering their content for free,” Craig said. 

As for the future, both Craig and Grieve share their misgivings.

“I did my three unpaid internships while I was at Georgetown,” Craig said. “I start my fourth internship (but paid this time) at the end of May.”

But Craig searched for that internship for almost seven months.

Grieve, on the other hand, knows that he’s lucky to have secured a good job in online journalism. Nevertheless, he  feels the weight of recent cutbacks.

“Until someone figures out a new way to make money off of news—some way to better monetize the Internet—there aren’t going to be too many places where a journalist can get paid for his work. That’s bad for me, bad for other journalists, and, ultimately, bad for our democracy,” Grieve said. 

Seeing into the Future

The future of journalism can be hard to predict—particularly in the midst of such an unstable market. 

It seems that in recent times, a newspaper’s move to only online press has been equated to shutting down a newspaper completely. In many cases, a total switch to online publication has signaled impending bankruptcy or drastic downsizing.

Furillo, however, does not believe The Bee will ever switch to entirely online operations—at least not in his lifetime. 

Instead, he said, “the paper product will become smaller, more expensive, and better.”  

Because the vast majority of The Bee’s revenues are coming from the paper product, even in a down economy, Furillo thinks that printed publications will remain  on top for at least the near future. 

People have even inquired directly as to whether or not The Bee intends to shut its doors any time soon. “The answer is no,” Rudy said.

With regards to newspapers like The San Francisco Chronicle, though, Craig foresees weakness. 

“I’m pretty sure that The Chronicle is going to go under. As for The Bee, if it wasn’t around two years from now, it wouldn’t shock me,” Craig said. 

Furillo is more optimistic about the future of his employer. 

“[Closing’s just] not gonna happen. The Bee’s been around for 152 years, and it’ll be around for at least 152 more,” Furillo said.

Having a legacy doesn’t always bode well for newspapers’ futures. The Rocky Mountain News published its final edition in February, closing just before its 150th-year anniversary.