They're not particularly worried, they tell me, about end of year bonuses, at least those lucky few that still get them, because all media are particularly bouyant right now and riding on a wave of increased profitability from the huge surge in advertising revenue.
Overseas trends are showing both radical changes in both volume of news consumption by Americans particularly, as well as changes in what constitutes news these days.
So depressing are these trends apparently, that two of the US's biggest newspapers, Tribune and Knight Ridder, have put themselves up for sale. Then we had NBC news indulging in brutal budget cuts last month. Add to this the fact that right now only 58% of Americans over 65 years of age read newspapers against 70% a decade ago.
Americans are also appearing to be far more interested in news about the latest fashion fad than how many of their countrymen are being wiped out in Iraq. And almost 30% of them with a completed high school education don't bother to tune into any sort of news whatsoever, not radio, TV nor in the newspapers.
Far too many South African media still cling to the notion that politics is what the majority of their readers, viewers and listeners want in spite of the Daily Sun having proved otherwise quite conclusively.
This US-led move away from news is a trend that also took root in South Africa as long as 10 years ago. I recall the chilling moment I was addressing a group of about 80 middle managers at BMW South Africa - all of them round about 25 years of age and all university graduates. I asked how many of them read a newspaper every day. Not a single hand went up. How many read a newspaper every week? Still no hands. How many actually read, watched or listened to any news at all? Just sometimes? Occasionally? Once in a blue moon? Two hands out of 80 went up and even those two admitted that they listened to the news simply because it had the annoying habit of interrupting their music radio programmes.
The fact is that after the dramatic declines of the mid-1990s, hardly any of South Africa's news media have managed to reach as many regulars as they did 12 years ago.
Since those heady days of the early 1990s when newspaper newsrooms particularly were filled to the brim with hacks, those numbers have been culled at a quite alarming rate. Small wonder those still with jobs have got the willies.
But, the main reason most of them are getting edgy is not because of disturbing trends overseas but rather the way in which their bosses are going to react if and when the South African economy starts cooling down.
Every journalist knows or rather should know that when the economy starts to cool down, or even just looks as though it is cooling down, the first thing that happens is companies start slashing their advertising budgets right left and centre in the hope of achieving some sort of emergency sustainability through cost-cutting, rather than putting in more of a marketing effort.
And when ad revenues go down so do profits and long before profits go down, mass media companies start looking towards their newsrooms the way hungry hyenas watch newborn impala.
Before the boom of a few years ago came to the rescue of mass media in the shape of an almost 50% increase in the advertising revenue pool, there were not more than three or perhaps four newspapers in this country actually making a profit.
Mainly because during the 1990s, they had all cut back on what they considered inconsequential things like skilled journalists, editors and sub-editors, electing instead to simply fill the spaces between advertisements with largely irrelevant editorial material bought cheaply from overseas.
What my friends and former colleagues are getting edgy about is quite simply whether their bosses actually learnt any lessons from the 1990s. Perhaps just one lesson - that content is king and that if there is no quality in what is printed or broadcast, the consumer will simply turn away from the mass media again and embrace the Internet, DVDs, iPods, PlayStation 3s or anything else where they can control what they consume.
If South Africa's mass media once again compromise content quality when times get tougher in the years to come, as surely they will, then there is no doubt that more than just a few radio stations, some very long established newspapers, lots and lots of magazines and certainly more than just a few of our yet-to-be born regional TV channels, will all go the wall with a resounding bang.
I'm pretty sure our mass media management have learnt the hard way and that they all realise now just how important content is and how even more critical it is going to be in the future.
But, I must admit, after 40 years of on-off involvement in our mass media, were I gainfully employed in a newsroom in this country today, I would be feeling very edgy about how management will react when shareholders bray for some serious cost-cutting. Somehow when pushes become shoves, my bet is that getting rid of journalists will once again be the favoured option.
In spite of the fact that even the most cursory glance at the most recent ABC figures will show that those magazines, for example, that are prospering, do so because of quality content and not smooth-talking advertising reps.
Those that are still battling to increase readership even in these exceptionally good times are still just filling the spaces between what few ads they have with garbage.
And something else that is making a lot of people edgy is the fact that in spite of the frighteningly high cost of Internet access in this country, online publishing is gaining ground by the week.
Hopefully, when traditional mass media discover the true threat of low cost broadband, it won't be too late.
