Veteran television news director and consultant Jim Willi wrote in his blog this week that it's time for the RTNDA to separate itself from the NAB conference and return to the days when news directors would gather to learn from each other. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," he wrote of combining the RTNDA and the NAB conventions. But the economics of the times have gutted the RTNDA gathering.

There are over 100,000 people at this convention - but only a sliver of them are at the RTNDA. The NAB exhibits sprawl for hundreds of yards across the Las Vegas convention center. The RTNDA exhibits are tucked in a corner off the walkway between the convention center and the Hilton. Many walk by - few walk in.

    ...These are difficult times in broadcasting, and station management seems to view the RTNDA as a "perk" and the NAB as a necessity.

Jim wants to know what you think, so I encourage you to click on the link above and leave your comments. These are definitely difficult times, and the leadership of both the RTNDA and NAB is more important than ever. I met with one executive who told me his company sent 50 people to the conference last year. This year, only three were allowed to attend. Many, many others — who were regular faces in times past — were absent. Another sign of the times was the number of attendees I met who came to network, because they were out of work.

A few weeks ago, Peter Osnos of The Century Foundation wrote a gut-wrenching piece about the loss that we all feel as we say goodbye to the industries we once knew.

    ...the real problem is something deeper, I sense. It is a belief that no matter how good your work, how thoroughly reported and influential, it isn't going to matter in protecting your newspaper. Because of the revenue declines and cutbacks, the mood of proprietors and managers, on the whole, is near panic. Outstanding work by their staffs, the newsroom has become convinced, isn't going to make a difference in the outcome of their institution. The effort at morale-building in the stream of front office memos announcing departures, the cheerful exhortations to survivors to do great work, only adds to the cynicism that pervades.

    ...The problem is that the prevailing mood of a declining and deteriorating industry is so pervasive and so discouraging that it reinforces itself. "What's the point?" is a debilitating attitude, and it is very difficult to reverse.

Those who work in the broadcasting and print industries can all relate to what Osnos wrote. In a very real sense, we're grieving the death of a loved one, and the five stages of grieving authored by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her seminal book On Death and Dying are both relevant and revealing.

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

We're past denial, although who can argue we went through that? We're also past the anger phase. Professional news people lashed out at anybody they could tag, beginning with the blogosphere. That's gone now, as is the sorry stage of bargaining, where we attempted to embrace the new while hanging on to the old. If we could just do this... If we could just do that... Sorry, folks we can't talk our way out of this one. Besides, to whom does one bargain for justice anyway?

I think what Osnos is describing — and what the mood at the NAB/RTNDA reflected — is textbook depression, and that's the stage that we're in now. Television may not be as advanced as our newspaper friends are, but it's there just the same. "What's the point?" is the behavior of an industry depressed. The helplessness of staying home when the industry gathers is another sign. The dark pall of fear in the face of relentless cutbacks is still another, for anxiety and depression are two sides of the same coin.

But look what comes after depression? Acceptance. That's where we need to be, because minds who have fully accepted that those nostalgic days are gone and are not coming back are minds that can actually move forward. It's the darkness-just-before-dawn syndrome.

The newspaper industry is much closer to this than broadcasters. In fact, I know some publishers who have fully accepted the inevitable and are working to genuinely reinvent themselves. In the acceptance stage, memories of the lost loved one turn from pain to warmth, and that's where we all need to be.

As our friend Gordon Borrell likes to say, "Things are very positive where I work." Indeed. Growth is on the web side, so let's turn the page and get busy. Historians will write what they must, but we've all got work to do.