TypePad's "Journalist Bailout Program": More Panacea Than Career Path

Lately, there’s been plenty of suggestion that the road to a productive future in journalism is through blogging, but SixApart’s announcement of its cheekily-titled “TypePad Journalist Bailout Program”  is hardly worth the excitement it seems to have generated.

The program promises qualified journalists a free account to its blogging service, TypePad, and other perks, such as inclusion in its ad network and free tech support. Apparently, according to the TypePad Web site, the program has “gotten a flood of submissions”, and the company admits it “hadn’t quite planned for this much of a reaction.” (Entrants are asked to submit a link to a recent story they’ve written.)

Naturally, TypePad has gotten positive press out of its “bailout”, but it’s not as though the program will be the first step in ushering in a brave new world where hundreds of laid-off journalists will now form hundreds of cottage industries, thus resurrecting their careers, and the journalism profession. Only 20 to 30 journalists will get to be part of the program — at least at first.

To put that in perspective, theoretically, the whole TypePad program could be filled just with the people who are about to get laid off or take a buyout from USA Today, which said it was going to get rid of 20 newsroom jobs earlier this week. And even for those who get the gig the chances of it compensating for what they’ve lost is minimal.