Another semester over. I have three weeks until my final semester as a journalism undergrad begins. If all goes well, and I feel it will, I should be graduating in May, 2009. (Hooray!!!)

That is the good news. The bad news is, of course, the current state of the economy. Seems every job sector is laying off people in the hundreds, if not thousands. One emailing list that I'm on (affliated with A Photo A Day, found at www.aphotoaday.org) is made up of photojournalists in varying stages of their career, from students (like yours truly) to people who have recently been laid off. The first week that I recieved emails from the list, several people added notes above their daily photos stating, "I've been at the Any City (State) Newspaper for X-amount of time. As of this morning, I am now unemployed. Wasn't just me, but they laid off a full twenty percent of their staff." Of course, it isn't necessarily twenty percent, but what I've been reading, both on this list and in other places, is that newspapers (as well as TV and radio stations, both in news and other areas of stations and papers) have been laying off hundreds (or thousands) of people with tons of experience. What's a journalism student/almost grad to do?

Now I'm sure that there are people who'll point out that maybe graduating in May will help. After all, if a reporter's salary at Big Time Paper or Local News Affiliate is, say, in the $30,000-70,000 range and a reporter in the $60,000 range is let go, the same place can conceivably hire two reporters for that same $60,000. Better yet, let's go with the base pay and save half the money so we can remain in the black. Heck, let three or four in that price-range go, hire three or four recent grads to take their place and voila! Look at the savings!

Maybe so. But I'm 55 years old. I'll still be 55 when I graduate. That can make it a little diceier. Hmmm...hire her, and and ten, twelve years, we'll have to retrain someone else. Flip side is, hire her now at base pay, in ten years she'll be at base pay plus ten years' worth of increases, and then we can start back at base pay. Hmmm...

Or not.

So what are my plans? At this point, I'm seriously considering starting a small production company and doing video-documentaries. Yes, I'll put in applications. That steady paycheck can be a good thing. But get the documentaries going...

I know, I know...that will involve lots of hard work. Lots of chances.

But then, does anything really worth while come easy? I kind-of doubt it.