DadTalk

What I’ve Been Working On Part II

I’'m still working on that other project I mentioned on Tuesday. Below is the first few graphs of of Part II:

Nearly three-quarters of former Los Angeles Times journalists feel less secure about their lives since parting the struggling Tribune Company, a recent informal survey has found. Some of the journalists also reported increased health problems, concern over long-term health insurance and heavy reliance on their spouses’ incomes.

The poll was conducted among former Los Angeles Times journalists who are members of a support message group. Seventy-five out of 124 members responded.

Despite the loss of security, several journalists were happy to escape the pressures of working for the newspaper and the constant threat of layoffs.

“I really could not have continued to have a productive work life with the job insecurity I had at the Times,” wrote a woman who left in April without a buyout but found full-time employment. “It was very hard on my family and on me to never feel secure in my job.”

“It’s odd, but despite the financial ruination and the prospect of never being able to fully retire, I’m happier than I’ve ever been,” wrote another woman who had been laid off.  “Life is good, and the bitterness comes from the big financial losses and from the overall lack of appreciation by the LAT.”

Read the Rest at TheJournalismShop.

What I’ve Been Working On

I know my posts have been light as of late, but I’ve been working on a project for another website I manage. Here are the first few graphs:

Former Los Angeles Times journalists continue to struggle with severe underemployment, soon-to-expire unemployment benefits and worries about retirement, a recent informal survey of 75 former staffers found. Nearly three-quarters of the respondents said they had been laid off or asked to leave by the financially troubled Tribune Company; the rest left the company voluntarily.

More than two-thirds are still receiving unemployment checks, though 68 percent expect those benefits to expire within 30 weeks of when the survey was taken in mid-November. The loss of benefits are despite the 14-20 week-extension recently signed by President Barack Obama.

The eventual end of benefits weighs heavily on the former Times employees.

“I’m hanging in there, but don’t know what I’ll do when I don’t have unemployment as a base,” wrote one female ex-staffer. “I’m in my 50s and it isn’t easy to find a job at my level and impossible to find one that pays what I used to make.” All comments were offered anonymously in the survey.

Read the rest at TheJournalismShop.com.

Typepad, Our Longtime Host, Launches Free Blogging Tools

While I’ve used Typepad since I began this blog in Spring of 2004, I never much talk about it. I suppose that’s because it’s worked so well for us.

In fact, my wife and I run several blogs through our Typepad account. The biggest is now Cybils, which honors the best children’s books of the year. The next largest site is DadTalk.

A blog I never mentioned, but has been up for a few weeks, runs embedded in TheJournalismShop. This blog is about freelance work that my former colleagues have obtained in the last few months. A colleague of mine does most of the posting on this site.

The smallest site is QuartzTrail, which my wife uses to sell the jewelry she makes. Go buy something!

My wife and I also have several dormant sites: WriteThru, BookBuds, InlandEmpress and Docimacy. It remains to be seen if we’ll bring any of those back.

I bring this all up because Typepad invited me to preview their new micro-blogging tools, which are free to bloggers who don’t need the full suite of blogging tools. There are a few ways to use these microblogs:

• Twitter, Facebook blasting – You might, for example, create a microblog to automatically post to Facebook and Twitter, rather than using cut and paste. LinkedIn is expected down the road.
• Some people don’t want a full blog and think Twitter posts are too short.
• Set up a social blogging site – this is where anyone who becomes a member can create posts.
• Marketing – You can use the social blogging tools to spread the word out about your blog.
• Commenting tools – helps the blogger see all the comments from one person

If you’re interested, here’s the Typepad post on how to create your own microblog.

Blogs Must Reveal Gifts, Pay for Reviews Stating in December

Wow. Starting Dec.1, the Federal Trade Commission will require bloggers who review products to disclose whether they were paid by advertisers or if they received the product for free, reports The New York Times and most of the blogosphere.

While I get a few CDs and DVDs in the mail, I only review ones I like; I certainly have not built my website around product reviews. I certainly don’t mind blasting some product out of the air, I just don’t waste my time on below-average products.

And while I can see the logic to the FTC rules, it may pose an interesting problem for book review sites large and small. After all, not even big newspapers pay for book review copies. The sheer number of books makes that impossible.

I don’t know if this ruling will reduce all the clutter out there without a significant enforcement effort – will a team spend all day checking out websites? I guess only time will tell. What do you think?

Book Awards Nominate Favorite Stories Published Over Past Year

Did you or your child read a fantastic new book in the past year? One that you think more people should know about?

If so, go right now to my wife’s website and NOMINATE your favorite book of the year. All kids books published in English between Oct. 16, 2008 and Oct. 15 2009 are eligible.

Here are the categories:

• Easy Readers/Short Chapter Books
• Fantasy/SF
• Fiction Picture Books
• Graphic Novels
• Middle Grade Fiction
• Non-Fiction, MG/YA
• Non-Fiction Picture Books
• Poetry
• Young Adult Fiction

You have till Oct. 15 to place your ballot. After that, judges will begin a process of whittling down the list until the top books are announced come next Valentine’s Day.

CYBILS Judges Needed for Book Awards

Yes, it’s time once again for Cybils. What the heck is that you ask? Why, that’s when my wife becomes obsessed over children’s books for six months.

Oh wait, I mean that’s when my wife begins work on the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards. While the book awards have been Anne’s and a friend’s baby since its inception in 2006, my wife will share a larger burden this year.

To start things off, Cybils needs judges. If you blog about children’s books and are interested, you should at least take a look. Read this and then this.

If you have a favorite children’s book from this year, you might want to drop by between Oct. 1-15 to nominate a book. Don’t worry, I’ll post again when that time comes.

Holy Overload

Launched a website. Flew to Connecticut for a wedding. Kids back at school the day we returned home. Now have 500 (literally) emails to get through.

Still to go: renew lease, deal with school paper work, medical bills, taxes, build another website, take kids to and from school, wife’s birthday, laundry, find someone to hire me.

I hope to catch up soon.

Growing Up Without Dad

My dad died when I was 9. For most of my life, I would have denied that his death had any real impact on my development.

After all, I was a fiercely self-sufficient young boy with a strong sense of awareness at a very young age. On the day my dad died, I mentally took on the role of “oldest male” in the house and never really saw his death as a negative. I suppose that’s strange, but I’ve always been the type who rises to meet adversity.

Of course, there was a touch of silliness to it. I didn’t get a job as my grandfather did when his dad died. I didn’t take over the role of raising my brother. And in actuality, I didn’t know squat.

But, I did grow up a lot on the day my dad died from an embolism caused by a metal plate used to mend a broken leg. My sense of responsibility was immediate and immutable. In many ways, I acted as adult-like as my immature mind could muster.

It wasn’t until my kids were born that I started to realize something had been lost. Consider:

Want to Learn More About Twitter?

If you don’t, I understand. I mean, enough is enough already. On the other hand, Twitter is getting hard to run away from. If you want to learn more, go to my other site for an article on how to make the most of Twitter.

What Was I Thinking?

Because I’ve just launched WriteThru.com, which offers free webinars to media professionals seeking to enhance their technology skills, I’m going to cross-post my “explainer” here on DadTalk. Please feel free to spread the word about WriteThru … I can use the help!

I LEFT THE LOS ANGELES TIMES knowing an economic storm was coming, but I had no idea just how hard the media world would be hit. I figured there would be layoffs at newspapers beyond those of the late 1980s and early 1990s, but then mistakenly hoped that the market would stabilize.

Today, I find it heartbreaking to see so many hard-working colleagues and friends suddenly wondering how to pick up the pieces of their damaged careers. PaperCuts counts nearly 16,000 newspaper jobs lost in the United States in 2008 alone and nearly 9,000 more so far this year. And by all accounts, TV, radio and magazine employees all have been equally pummeled.

But I do not believe that professional journalism will die. Hints of what might emerge are seeping through. Think ProPublica. Think VoiceofSanDiego. Consider the possibilities of electronic ink/paper. I don’t know exactly what form this golden era of journalism will materialize, but I do know that many of the journalists who are losing their jobs today will help launch this renaissance.