By
Ellen Foley The reporter sitting next to me got the news at a meeting: She had been laid off.
She slammed shut her empty file drawer. She quickly said goodbye. The bad economy ushered another one of journalism's finest out the door.
Thousands of us have witnessed or experienced the same story in the past two years. This one, though, took place in 1982 at the newly merged Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Several other colleagues left the Star Tribune that month. All of our lives and careers changed. But they weren't over.
More than 25 years of watching the ups and downs of the news business has given me, a former reporter and editor, the long view. I was one of the lucky ones who kept her job during the 1980s downturn. Over the next two decades, my ability to relocate and reimagine my job helped me find new, more promising jobs during every recession that followed.
Today I console my job-hunting friends: If you were recently laid off or are worried that you will be the next to slam shut that empty drawer, I want you to know that your next job is just around the corner. And the very skills that got you into a newsroom are going to help you thrive outside of it.