by Dino Ciliberti

Created on: February 23, 2009

These are challenging times in the newspaper industry.

As an editor of a daily newspaper in New England, I know these challenges every day I walk into the newsroom.

In nearly 25 years in the newspaper business, I've gone through about five ownership changes, layoffs, salary freezes and basically anything you could have thrown at me.

But the strong survive.

You have to keep evolving and adapting to the changing times. These days, I'll do everything possible to help generate revenue in terms of collaborating with the advertising department on numerous projects that would have been unheard of a decade or so ago. And now the focus is on the Internet and trying to come with new ways to drive eyeballs toward our website.

A journalist must be more multi-tasking than ever. You have to be first with the news because now you are competing with bloggers, TV, radio and numerous websites who all want a piece of the pie.

And with many newspaper companies either closing newspapers, laying off employees or filing for bankruptcy protection, you wonder what's left in the tank.

There's no doubt about it that people will always need people to inform them about what is going on in the world around them.

And this must be done with fact finding and best practices always coming first. Anyone can have a voice on the Internet, but how many of these voices actually speak the truth?

The newspaper industry is shrinking. As the economy continues to sink, advertising revenue continue to plummet. And when that happens, resources go out the window. It's no wonder that newsrooms are losing their institutional memory as people who have devoted their lives to this craft are shown the door.

For any editor or reporter, survival is based on finding a way to overcome adversity and to remember why we are journalists in the first place. We are here to inform, to educate and to enlighten. We are here to tell our readers what is going on and to serve as the community's watchdog.

With journalists, the world would be on the brink of chaos and corruption at all times.

We are the ones who provide the checks and balances. We are the ones who promote the good and hold the bad accountable.

It's not an easy business and these days it's an uncertain one. It'd also be easy to throw in the towel and move on. But this is our calling, our duty, our lifeblood.

Doing anything else would probably be considered criminal.

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