Laid off from business journalism: Now what?

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Despite being laid off as business editor of the Fresno Bee earlier this year, Mike Nemeth has no regrets about his career in journalism, or his work as a business journalist.

“I miss journalism almost every day,” says Nemeth, now nine months after he lost his job.

The Bee folded its business news desk into its metro operations, with the four business reporters now reporting to an assistant city editor.

Nemeth had been business editor since October 2005. Before that, he was assistant city editor at the Tri-City Herald for nearly seven years. He also worked at the Skagit Valley Herald and the Anchorage Times. He was known in the Bee newsroom for his sense of humor and for making the business desk a fun place to work.

Now, he’s working for a nonprofit, the San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization, assisting 35 cities and counties get their energy efficiency conservation block grants. “I’m putting my otherwise useless skills into a new realm that involves a lot of outreach, deadlines and obscure new concepts,” he says.

Nemeth talked to Talking Biz News via e-mail about what it was like to lose his job, how he’s coped in the past nine months, and whether he’d come back to business journalism. What follows is an edited transcript.

How surprised were you when you were laid off from the Fresno paper?

I wasn’t surprised. My closest friend at the paper, who followed me from the Tri-Cities in Washington state, ditched for a energy related Web site in Oakland right before the second round of layoffs. I got tagged in the third round. He wouldn’t have been one of the casualties, but got sick of the sinking-ship mentality.

What kind of severance did you get, and did you use that to help you find work?

I got a decent severance. I had been with McClatchy 11 years. My wife works as an English teacher so we still had an income. With unemployment, we were fairly stable. Still able to keep the boys’ music lessons, which are fairly substantial. I didn’t end up spending any of my severance over the seven and a half months of no job. When I finally got a job, I bought my wife a new Civic with cash. I’m using the balance to upgrade our furnace and finally get an AC unit for this house. I spent an entire summer in this city with a swamp cooler. It felt like the bayou. But I was writing fiction and feeling creative.

How much time did you spend sulking, and when did you start looking for jobs?

I didn’t really sulk. I worked another week at the Fresno Bee after getting notice. Finished my projects, cleaned the decks. Most of my fellow laid-off co-workers ditched the day we got the fat manilla folder and the frowns of two senior managers. It was far nicer than McClatchy’s treatment of those of us who worked at the Anchorage Times. In 1992, the Anchorage Daily News became the only paper in Alaska’s biggest city and all of us in the bloated newspaper-war newsroom had four hours to clear out. That was shock. This was a slap but strangely interesting. I became part of the story, and my bosses really didn’t want to send me packing.

Did you want to get back into journalism? What were the limitations there?

I miss journalism almost every day. I remember the obits on the wire about the veteran AP writers who continued their craft despite alcoholism, divorce, kids who hate them and still loved their jobs. I love this crap. But I also like to paint cars, rebuild houses and run marathons. Of course, none of those interests pays the bills.

What was the first work that you did after being laid off, and how long did that last?

After I got laid off, I went to work on a really dilapidated foreclosed home I purchased with money from the sale of my father’s house in Seattle. I beat the Seattle market and capitalized on the real estate meltdown in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The repo was in bad shape. Renters from Ukraine had painted every room a different shade of pink or purple. The stucco was peeling and the yards and fences were trashed. It took six months but I gutted the bathrooms and kitchen, laid a lot of tile and replaced fencing in 107-degree temps. I felt like I was back in college working pick-up construction jobs, walking around in tattered, paint-covered clothing.

How have you used your business journalism skills during the process?

Business journalism gives us a cynical world view. Worse than that of sports writers. They still get pumped about something. We just seem to wait for the next crisis. And it’s coming. Will cap and trade be co-opted and corrupted by fee-happy bankers? Does journalism help in the real world? Hell if I know. I can write a mean cover letter.

You’re writing grants now for counties. How did you find that job?

The grant-writing gig is interesting. I spend my time working with small impoverished cities in the Valley, helping them get stimulus money they don’t have the resources to go after. I feel like I’m doing something of value and I interact with agencies and J.Q. like the old days.

How satisfied are you with the work you’ve been doing compared to what you were doing in journalism?

Nothing compares to journalism. That hot story is a drug I still haven’t recovered from.

Would you still like to find a job in journalism?

Some part of me believes I will be the ME of a smallish paper even now. That was my dream. Helm a 40,000 circulation paper and retire, then count kind notes from journalists I mentored. What a load, eh?

Do you think you’d permanently give up on journalism and move into another field?

Never say never, again — even with a Scottish accent.

What do you miss about journalism? Not miss?

I miss the “we’re in it together” camaraderie. I don’t miss some of the other aspects.

If you could go back to your job as business editor, would you?

Not really.