Veteran journalists: an endangered species.

• Author: Saltzman, Joe

Some expert's consider the dramatic increase of temporary workers replacing more expensive full-time employees as one of the reasons American business is in trouble. Nowhere has this pruning down of older, experienced employees been more devastating than in the media businesses.

For the last decade, newspapers, magazines, and broadcast news organizations have been forcing out seasoned veterans who have spent two or three decades or more creating and refining their company's products. The mathematics makes sense to bosses paid to make the bottom line attractive. Get rid of one employee earning $70,000 a year plus health and retirement benefits. Replace that person with two younger contract or temporary workers and pocket the difference in salary and the savings in benefits.

The argument behind this seems simple enough. A business replaces its rundown, tired employees whose best years are behind them with youthful, fresh faces willing to work longer and harder, eager to make good in their new careers. To sweeten the deal for the company, these replacements are not hired under the old rules. They are paid on an annual or project-by-project contract. This limits the company's commitment to them as well as the workers' benefits and future security. This system eliminates future deadwood before it develops by constantly renewing the supply of youthful, energetic workers. It's also an easy way to get rid of incompetents, replace troublemakers, and continually refine the workforce to fit the projects at hand. Keep a few experienced pros around the plant to guide and teach the inexperienced new contract players. And watch that bottom line glisten.

It sounds good, but the loss involved is enormous and usually can't be seen on a ledger until too late to do anything about it. What is lost involves such intangible qualities as esprit de corps and company loyalty. Also lost are a feeling of pride in the product and a commitment to make that product better and better. But more than all of that, what is lost is the experienced, seasoned worker who knows how to ask the questions that can mean the difference between success and failure, questions that young, inexperienced contract workers either do not know how to ask or are afraid to because simply to raise them might jeopardize their jobs: Should we be doing this? Why are we doing this? Is there a better way to do this? What are the repercussions of what we are doing? Is this the right way to accomplish...