An email from a Newsquest employee who wishes to remain anonymous. It is not about that company, however, and raises issues that have been aired by other commenters recently:
I was interested to read your column [posting] about the decline of newspapers. The great unmentionable seems to be that youngsters are still being attracted on to university media studies and journalism courses in their droves.
The sad reality is that after three or more years of study very few of them will find jobs on newspapers or magazines - and they cannot all work in PR. If ITV gets the go-ahead to cut its regional news output there will be redundancies there too.
Rather than waste taxpayers' money training people for jobs that do not exist, I think the situation should be made clear to the government with a view to closing some of the courses.
It would be interesting to ask universities and colleges how many of their 2008 graduates have found jobs - not many I guess. Journalists' pay is pitifully low and one of the reasons is the ever-present flow of bright young things desperate for a job. Reducing the supply would not be a bad thing.
I'm nearly 60 and I thank God that I am that age and not 30, because the chances of working in newspapers until retirement at 70 would be virtually nil!
