Editorial recruitment to suffer as newspapers' days 'are numbered'

The days in which a typical morning consists of picking up a newspaper to read on the way to work are almost over, one US journalist has argued.

American journalist Vin Crosbie has recently published an article outlining the demise of the printed paper, and has included that even some major daily newspapers will no longer exist by the end of the next decade, prompting concern among many journalists.

"More than half of the 1,439 daily newspapers in the United States won't exist in print, e-paper, or website formats by the end of next decade. They will go out of business," Crosbie said.

"The few national dailies - namely USA Today, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal - will have diminished but continuing existences via the web and e-paper, but not in print. The first dailies to expire will be the regional dailies, which have already begun to implode."

Editorial recruitment is already on a downward trend, and Crosbie has argued that such troughs are not cyclical, as many proprietors argue in defence of such layoffs.

Coinciding with yesterday's revelation that around 65 editorial jobs are to be let go from Trinity Mirror's Midlands regional papers, the report appears almost prophetic, and suggests that indeed, recruitment editorial recruitment hopefuls may need to brush up their web skills before long.

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