President's Message from Rafael Olmeda

It won't let up.

Reports of layoffs in our industry went from monthly to weekly and now, it seems, to daily. Two members of NAHJ's board of directors just got the bad news. In this great information age, with more sources for news than ever before, media companies continue to cut the very resource that is most responsible for bringing news to the public.

People.

Not "journalists." Not "reporters" or "photographers" or "talent." Those are the words we use to express how useful people can be. The bottom line is that these are people, and they, we, are losing our jobs at an alarming rate.

At NAHJ and our sister organizations in UNITY: Journalists of Color, our effort over the past few years has been geared toward preparing our members for a changing journalism landscape. We've tried to equip members with the skills necessary to survive in a field that relies less and less on traditional media and more and more on the Internet.

Our circulation is down. Our ratings are down. Our advertising revenue is down.

Is there any hope?

I would love nothing more than to be the one person in the entire field of journalism with "the answer." I'm not. The NAHJ board has watched layoff reports with increasing dismay. For years, NAHJ's mantra has been to hire more people of color in general, and more Latinos in particular. Our signature program, the Parity Project, relies in large measure on a growing industry to increase the number and proportion of Latinos in journalism.

But our industry is not growing. Hiring is not the order of the day. Opportunity appears to be wasting away. We've gone from "hire more" to "when you lay off healthy percentages of your staffs, keep diversity in mind."

When I think back to the last few NAHJ conventions, to the last few conventions of all our associations, I do see some room for hope. Our career development panels and workshops were packed. When the opportunity to learn new skills is presented, it's impossible to find enough room for those interested in learning them.

And that's the only answer I can see. No one can turn to me or to the NAHJ board or to your companies or to anyone else. The answer is in your hunger, in your drive, in your determination to succeed.

If being on the NAHJ board has taught me anything these last eight years, it's that opportunity doesn't knock. It waits for you to knock. No, it waits for you to smash the door down and seize it. It doesn't come looking for you.

My heart goes out to anyone who has lost a journalism job in the last few years. NAHJ remains ready to help, with job postings and career development training and anything else we can reasonably be expected to do.

Ultimately, however, it's up to you. For more than 25 years, NAHJ has gone to the industry on your behalf and touted your diversity, your talent, your skills, your resources and your overall benefit to this still noble profession. In these difficult circumstances, those are the skills and resources you'll need to draw on to plan the next chapter of your career.

NAHJ was with you before. We are with you now. And we will be with you wherever you end up.

For now, and for what it's worth, you're in my prayers.

Rafael Olmeda
President
NAHJ

Past Messages

February 2008 President's Message
November 2007 President's Message
March 2007 President's Message
October 2006 President's Message