In the past few weeks, three former co-workers have reached out with worries/concerns/bad news about the status of their newspaper jobs, and I suppose the surprise here is … that it doesn’t happen more often.

Two were asking for any insight or advice I might have about remaining employed in an industry that appears to be in a death spiral.

The third told me about being laid off.

For the second time, I am out of the newspaper business.

The first “departure” came as a surprise and led to the creation of this blog, in March of 2008.

The second was of my own volition (which really is the better way to go, if it works for you), when I left The National in Abu Dhabi, after six years, back in mid-December to move to France and begin what apparently is retirement.

My previous experience, however, was real-world experience in how hard it is to leave the business before you planned (or hoped) to go, and the latest contact from friends is a reminder of how awful it must be for the survivors, still inside the industry, watching cutbacks and layoffs all around them, wondering when their own name will be called.

We pretty much know this is not going to get better.

A USA Today story from a few weeks ago, looking at the newspaper industry, seemed to sum up the dire situation under this headline: “Print’s dead — but so is digital”.

The point being that the online product was supposed to be the lifeline for newspapers, but it has failed to live up to expectations.

All I can tell colleagues who ask is to try to prepare themselves as best they can, financially, and be as valuable as they can be to their newspaper employer — to put off as long as possible the likely reality of leaving the business.

It was a grand run, many of us had, in what should be remembered as the Golden Era of print, from about 1975 through 2000. Salaries were never higher, newspapers were as important as they ever were and even more profitable.

And the hell of it? Even now, when conditions are so awful, when the future is bleak … most of those clinging to jobs in the newspaper biz still love what they do.