Paul Carr used to write the Not Safe For Work column for The Guardian, but no more. The reason is a slashing of the freelance budget, says Carr on Twitter, and then goes on and tells us that he thought about doing the column for free but decided against it. That last part was on his blog though, which is a good thing because the reasoning would take up quite a few tweets… In the same blog post he writes a bit about leaving.
Having said all that, I will miss the outlet the Guardian gave me every week; to boast and swear and talk about things that were on my mind. I’m not sure there’s another UK paper that would give me such freedom – and for that reason I’ll be eternally grateful to my former paymasters. And I’ll miss them, like a sometimes-mental, socialist former girlfriend.
Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch isn’t sad about this. “Their loss our gain” he says, as he announces that Carr will be writing a weekly column for TechCrunch to run each Saturday morning. Good call, Carr’s Not Safe For Work Column over at The Guardian was a treat, and I’m thinking it was a huge mistake to cut it loose. But that’s the media industry for you right now. I’m just surprised Nick Denton didn’t snatch him up already.
There’s no doubt that media is in a time of change. Magazines and newspapers are hard pressed to save money, journalists are let go, there’s restructoring, and so on. All of this isn’t because of the financial crisis, but it sure speeds things up. So where do we turn for information about these things? To the blogosphere, of course, because that’s where we can read about the people that were let go, without having to filter out everything the hidden agenda of the so called old media. They are partial, you know. Of course, so is a disgruntled journo just sacked from his newspaper, but at least we expect him to be pissed.