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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Sizing up another downsizing: Learn to cherish now

Rebecca Nappi The Spokesman-Review

In the early 1930s, my mother-in-law worked as a secretary for the Columbia Broadcasting System, now known as CBS. She was also a fledgling actress, and she performed dramatic skits for an experiment called television. A TV schedule, published in the New York Times, promoted “dancing, violin recitals and other programs of interest.” Television was so new it didn’t quite know what it was, so it borrowed from radio, opera and theater. No one could have predicted that, 70 years later, television would broadcast events from around the world.

We are in the middle of a media revolution as radical as the one my mother-in-law experienced in the 1930s. No one can accurately predict how we’ll consume news and entertainment 10 years from now, let alone 70. Three years ago, when the first round of downsizing happened in The Spokesman-Review newsroom, I’d never heard the word blog, which basically means online journal. Now more than a dozen of us here have blogs on our Web site, www.spokesmanreview.com. Is this the future? Perhaps. But someday blogs might seem as quaint as “No Uncertain Waterloo,” the dramatic skit written for television in 1932 and starring Toni Costello, my mother-in-law.

Newspapers are known as a “mature” medium. They are still profitable, no certain Waterloo in their near future, but readership and circulation have been declining for years at almost every newspaper in the country. The Internet is only part of the reason.

Intellectually, I understand why The Spokesman-Review and other newspapers – the Los Angeles Times eliminated 60 newsroom positions last week – must let people go. Employees are a company’s biggest expense.

Emotionally? That’s a different story. Thursday, the newspaper announced that 11 newsroom staffers had accepted voluntary severance packages. In the past three years, we have lost about 40 newsroom employees, and we now number around 120. Almost every department in the newspaper experienced downsizing, too.

For readers, this means we won’t be able to cover as many stories as we did in the past, no matter how efficiently we refocus. But it also means we better understand what it feels like to be individuals caught in the middle of a changing global economy. It’s not a story unique to The Spokesman-Review.

The past three years opened my eyes to the reality that we are called upon to let people go all the time. People we love move away or die or close us out of their lives. We have no guarantee of any more time with anyone beyond the present moment. So I’m learning to make the most of those moments and not worry too much about the future. Easier said than done.

Eight years ago, features editor and close friend Kathryn DeLong left here for an editing job in the East. When we bid goodbye, we agreed to the no-guilt contact rule. Today, I pass it on to everyone in our community who will bid goodbye to friends or colleagues. When people move out of our lives, we often lose contact because we feel guilty. Maybe it was our turn to return a phone call or e-mail or holiday card. And we didn’t. So we assume the other person must be upset. Usually, they aren’t. The no-guilt contact rule means it’s never anyone’s turn to get in touch. If you feel like chatting, just get in touch, even if five or 10 years have gone by.

The television schedule with my mother-in-law’s name on it was yellowed with age when I photocopied it on a visit to her California home a few years ago. During that visit, we watched cable television with 500 channels to choose from. Until a few months before her death at 94, my mother-in-law remembered the name of William Paley, her boss at the Columbia Broadcasting System, and she shared memories about Walter, beloved Walter, her co-star in “No Uncertain Waterloo.”

The no-guilt contact rule conveys my hope that when we’re in our 80s and 90s, we’ll gather together and marvel at how it all turned out. We’ll remember each other’s names and laugh about blogs and the other strange things we tried. Of this, I am certain.