The sad countdown has begun

On Facebook I've noticed that a number of current Flint Journal employees are counting down their days to May 29, which is the last day for many there.

For many it is the end to the only real job they have ever known and you can feel the angst and sadness in their posts.

All of them deserved better. Frankly, most of them don't realize it yet, but better is on the way. Newspaper work will never be what it once was. The goofy characters, the ones who finished work in the newsroom only to continue it with colleagues at a local gin mill into the wee hours, are all gone.

We loved our work so much that we were willing to duel daily with our editors over assignments and sometimes incomprehensible editing. We fought for what we believed was right, we fought for the integrity of our stories and we fought for our readers. We were not always right, but we always cared.

For most of us the Flint Journal was more than a job, it was a family, it was friends and it was an opportunity to live out our passion for writing and journalism. We gladly took less pay than what we could make in other fields, although the pay was never too bad at the Journal (then, not now) for the chance to come to work everyday and work our craft.

We didn't punch a clock and most of us didn't watch it either. If I could go back and get paid for every hour I worked, I'd be a much wealthier man than I am today. It was never about the money. Until the last few months, there were very few days that I didn't wake up and look forward to going to work (work was not necessarily going to the office, but chasing my beat).

It was exciting, it was different everyday and it felt like it mattered.

That's why leaving it is so hard. It's like a root canal with no pain killers.

Many good reporters and writers remain, but they will be stretched even thinner than they are now. The bosses who remain won't help much, won't tap out a story or two to fill a hole, but will continue to demand more work for less pay.

Newspapers have become word factories where the assembly line has been sped up to the point that a bolt or two will be missing at the end of the line. The readers will blame the workers for the quality problem, but the real blame lies elsewhere. It lies with the folks that are speeding up the line.

I tip my hat to the friends who are leaving, I may even raise a Diet 7-Up to their departure. For those that remain, my best wishes as well and just a little note, one that used to grace the desk of my best friend in the business, to keep you going:

"ILLEGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM"