Columnist Retires from Post-Dispatch; Two Readers Split on Reaction

Betty Cuniberti takes an oldster buyout at the Post-Dispatch, but manages to take a swipe at blogs on her way out:

Even in the era of the Blogosphere (no thought too vacuous to share), this is good work if you can get it. What knucklehead would walk away from a newspaper column?

Ms. Cuniberti sees no connection between the blogosphere she knocks and the friendly reduction in force that she’s enjoying:

To cut operating costs, the paper offered an early-retirement buyout to folks over age 50 with five or more years on the job. It appears that some 40 newsmen and newswomen, whose combined service totals a staggering 700-plus years, are walking out the door. Just like that.

Of course, to a certain mindset (such as that of fifty-plus year old columnists with more than five years entrenched in the old time journalism business), declining readership at dailies leading to declining revenues leading to early retirements occurs spontaneously. Unconnected at all to the rise of this “Internet” and its commentators, many of whose I’ve found less vacuous than Ms. Cuniberti’s.

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