Life's Labor Gone

Yesterday, a former newspaper colleague, my friend of more than 20 years, and my partner of 15 years, Benjamin Meritt, lost his job of 22 years with the Hammonton News in southern New Jersey. His layoff, along with fellow HN staffers Nanette Galloway and Max Levine, became part of hundreds of layoffs throughout Gannett properties this month. (1) The company posted a third quarter profit in October, but still complained of sagging advertising sales and "the rise of digital media." (2) More on that later.

Meanwhile, a man who loved what he did is no longer employed. Ben, even though he was imperfect, was one of the best newsmen of his region. Even though he had his own opinions of the people and towns he was covering, which he shared with me often, he always acted as a professional, covering Hammonton and other communities with care, attention, and impartiality. He worked many long hours, some of which he was never compensated for, to make sure he had everything he needed for his weekly stories. He filled the shoes of absent or laid-off reporters, photographers, and typesetters, year in, year out.

He did what I would not do when I worked as his colleague 15 years ago. He stayed; I left. He stayed despite hearing me speak from my deepest instincts that the company we worked for, Gannett, was beginning to contract into itself. To me, Gannett was beginning to eat its young for profit. I knew that in 1996 and quit, leaving only a tiny ripple of protest that made no difference at all to such an insatiable maw, the persistently unsatisfied rich of this country, who have been given the nod to increase their plunder by last week's election. The so-called "Voice of the People " had spoken. What a joke.

I thought I had principles; I thought I was the one with courage, but I was wrong. Ben was the courageous one. Even though he didn't get a raise for three years back in the 1990s and received pitiful two-percenters since, even though no one would have blamed him for quitting when he was ordered to come to work while his mother's dead body still lay in bed at home, he continued. He stayed and did the job he loved, day after day, week after week, year after year, despite being paid significantly less, and working just as hard if not harder, than his daily colleagues. Ben maintained his professionalism, despite not having any protection at all from the encroachment of his newsroom by the business and advertising end, despite having no layer of protection from the weekly onslaught of the whiners, threatmongers, and general screaming meemies who had no idea what real news is supposed to be.

How could this company, with all its resources (especially in the 1990s) and its high-level "braintrust," not come up with news sources that combined print and online media? Gannett still blames digital media for its lack of significant profits, when it could have solved that problem at least a decade ago. Such foresight could have save hundreds of jobs, including Ben's. There's really no excuse, but greed.

Once I heard that Gannett managers regarded newsrooms as "a drag" on newspapers' bottom lines, one "publisher" who couldn't even read once declared he could "get newswriters off the streets." In a speech before the National Conference for Media Reform (as I recall) a few years back, Bill Moyers mentioned how Gannett rewarded a manager who had eviscerated the Asbury Park Press newsroom. That manager, through a flunky, perfected his "management" skills on the Atlantic County weeklies before advancing his company's greed-driven massacre there. When I heard that speech, I felt proud of my instincts, vindicated for my fierce resignation. I'm not so proud now.

Ben Meritt stayed -- and his reward? He's been kicked to the curb along with hundreds of others in Gannett this week. 

All I know is that all the money is the world cannot save a human soul. Ben's soul is his own, but now his life's labor is gone.

(1) http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-nov-1-7-your-layoff-comments-part_350.html

(2) http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201010211134dowjonesdjonline000598&title=correct-1015-gannett-3q-profit-rises