Yesterday morning I saw a graph showing the sharp employment decline in the newspaper industry.

By late afternoon I was part of the statistic.

Working in new media I assumed my job was safer than most.  With the changing nomenclature of the industry, journalists with a technological background are in high demand.  When the company decided to eliminate the entire multimedia team yesterday, I was a bit stunned.  Still, I worked for one of the few remaining newspapers that treats technology and the web as a  nuisance rather than embracing the potential.

That is why today I begin my life as an unemployed journalist.  

Still, I am not worried about my fate.  I plan to work on some multimedia projects I had little time for in the past.  I also plan to freelance and get my side business started.   Look for lots of changes in the coming weeks.

I decided last week that 2010 would be “The year of The Dean.”  I am even more passionate about that goal now then I was then.  This has the potential to be the start of something big.