13

As we all know the economy has been in a slump recently. Many are getting laid off from their jobs every day and journalists are certainly no exception to the issue. Many journalist and bloggers have lost their jobs recently and a company called Six Apart is going to try to help them. The company’s vice president is Anil Dash. On November 14th the company posted a blog addressing laid-off or nearly laid-off journalists. Anil Dash has had more than 300 responses to the blog so far. The respondents are trying to earn themselves one of the 20 to 30 yearly memberships that Six Apart is offering. The memberships would include professional technical support, advertising, and placement on the company’s site Blogs.com. The free membership accounts are worth $150 annually. Many journalists are excited and want to be a part of this because journalism is a slowly dying art. It is becoming harder and hard for journalist to find work. Having one of these spots could help him/her get noticed. I have been doing journalism since I was in the 8th grade. I also did it all through high school and now I am in my second year of working for the University Times. I have known for quite some time that journalism is not a field that I would make a good career in. The jobs are becoming more and more scarce and more and more people are turning to their computers and televisions to give them the latest updates; print media is becoming obsolete. I think what Six Apart is trying to do is a cool idea, but I also do not fully understand it. It seems to me that with so much economic activity and national headlines needing to be reported on, there should be work for these individuals. However, there isn’t. Maybe they should consider a new career path, because earning one of those spots could be a tough task and it is not enough to make a living from.

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/technology/internet/24apart.html?_r=1&ref=technology
External source: http://www.sixapart.com/blog/