Goodbye to the news: how out-of-work journalists assess enduring news values and the new media landscape

This article explores the cultural dimensions of the demise of legacy newspapers by looking at the words of journalists who have either been laid off, who have taken a ‘voluntary buyout,’ or who have left the industry in order to stay ahead of what they see as inevitable. Their voices are incorporated here through their goodbye letters, emails, speeches, columns and blog postings — their ‘final’ musings about the news industry in a new media world. This article performs a thematic analysis of the content of these texts. Findings reveal that these ‘goodbye’ journalists are wedded to an idea of journalism that no longer — and may have never — existed and blame their problems on Wall Street rather than self-reflexively examining the role of their own occupational values and practices in a changing media environment.