David Ogul (pictured) is not entirely quitting the newspaper business. But as he explains in his inaugural monthly column for San Diego’s Mission Times Courier, he’s no longer going to try and make a go of it in a newsroom full-time.

Ogul was laid off from the San Diego Union-Tribune in June 2011, and then again from the North County Times just a few weeks ago after the acquisition of that regional paper by U-T San Diego. In other words, he’s essentially been sent packing twice in two years by the same company. A far cry from the center where his beloved industry once resided:

I’ve seen a lot in my 32 years as a writer and editor working for numerous daily newspapers in Southern California, including an 11-year stint as an editor for The San Diego Union-Tribune. But it’s time to call it quits. Time to move on. Time to come to grips with the fact I don’t like what is happening to journalism today.

Time to admit I have no desire to take part any longer in a profession that has moved so far from where it was when I wrote my first professional story for California Journal on an Olympia typewriter back when Jimmy Carter was still in the White House.

Ogul bemoans the impact of the Doug Manchester era on San Diego investigative journalism, points out another telling example of the print media’s demise in Vista and ends his column with an Edward R. Murrow quote. Read it and – yes – weep.

[Photo courtesy @ogul]