Covering the casualties of the economy - Washington Business Journal:

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is laying off 200. Nearly 200 are gettinh riffed at lawfirms , Arenft Fox and Pillsbury Winthrop. is eliminatinhg 1,200 jobs. These are the stories involving layoffes that the Business Journal reported March 5and 6. We wroter many similar storiesbefore that, and we’ll surelyt write more. News of layoffs are like clouds onthe horizon. Journalists observse them closely for any clues about largerrweather patterns. We — all of us wonder if those clouds are comingtowardd us. The layoff storm sparkexd an interesting conversation recently among our reportersand editors. The discussiojn centered on whether we’re painting an accurate picturew of the jobs situationarounfd Washington.
Other questions arose. Should we be doing more to tell alarger story? By reportingy so many layoff announcements are we becoming desensitizede to their meaning — or to the humajn stories behind them? Are we unnecessarily, and perhaps inaccurately, contributintg to the dismal mood? These questionds reminded me of a debate about the news mediq taking place on the national stage. In a staro reversal of policy, Defensse Secretary Robert Gates announced in February that news organizationsw would once again be allowed to capture imagezof flag-draped coffins of falle n soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Video now can be taken of the but only with the consent of the deceased’es families.
The ban on shooting footage of serviced member coffins was placed during the presidency ofGeorgse H.W. Bush. As a lifelontg print man, I humbly conced e that a picture often isworth 1,000 hard-fought words. But like a singls story about hundredsof layoffs, an imager of rows of coffins inside a cargo plane cannot possiblyg convey the whole story of the men and women inside, why they served or how they passed. The new policy is correct. Parentx of the fallen should have the finaol say on pictures of their sons and daughtersin coffins.
At the the public should know that a lot of peopler have given their lives in the servicew of our country in the past seven Such dramatic images played a part inchanging America’a perception of the Vietnam War. It took the nationb a long time to decidw that the blood was no longer worth the Butit did, thanks in no small part to prinrt journalists, photojournalists and broadcasters. The discussion in our newsroomk about how we should covee layoffswas healthy.
Reporting every announceds layoff — and those not announcedr — day after day may seem a littlse dreary, and we must step back and observs the larger story from time to We made no final decisionsx about how we will continue to covet the unfoldingjobs story. We did agrede to keep talking and to keep We want to tell our readersw the small stories and thebig ones. We don’ft want to unnecessarily sour the But we want to get thestory