Brownsfan
Continuity Please!
I showed up to work yesterday and my editor said, "Can I see you in my office? It isn't good."
He ripped the bandage off and told me that without events and businesses closing, our advertising revenue had already dried up and he had to let about half the staff go - including me.
Two journalists will be kept on - the most experienced ones - to try and write four weekly papers between them. Half the advertising staff is gone. Editor dropped his title and demoted himself to advertising. Newsroom is empty. No proof-reader, journalists now proof each other's work exclusively, and half of the company cars might have to go.
He said he's hoping it doesn't last too long, then he can try to bring us back if we haven't found anything else - first, part-time. Then, hopefully, back to our full-time jobs.
Frankly, given current projections, I see the newspaper folding. People aren't following social distancing and self-isolation, way too many people want to carry on as normal, so I think this fiasco will carry on until next year. My mother in law said he financial advisor told her their current projections are collapse until June at the earliest - assuming our Federal and State governments go ahead with stage three lockdowns this weekend (Shutting everything down).
The situation is crazy. It was only Feruary this seemed laughable. The newspapers I was writing, in just three weeks, went from a minor mention of panic buying, to the shutting down of events, to interviewing people who had lost their job/business. Just that fucking quickly.
I posted on Facebook that I got fired and had quite a few people read out who had been laid off too - and the economic turmoil has only just begun, really.
Crazy times man.
Not sure why this is happening in Australia. Australia has not been hit hard by the virus yet. With winter coming, one might expect the cases in the southern hemisphere to start showing a seasonal increase similar to the flu, but the cases anywhere in the southern hemisphere so far are minimal (3050 total cases and 13 deaths in Australia) according to the website I consulted. Of course, any deaths at all are too many. But that holds for the flu and other diseases as well as traffic fatalities and other causes of death we accept without question. Is this just a case of world wide panic?
EDIT: If 3050 cases and 13 deaths sound significant, just consider that the flu results in about 250,000 to 500,000 yearly deaths worldwide. The typical number of deaths per year in the United States is about 36,000 with a yearly range of is 23,000 to 59,000 per the CDC.
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