More newspaper job cuts

It’s no secret the journalism industry is in dire straits. Looks like Star-News readers are in for more wire stories:

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080215/NEWS/802150335/0/news01

This entry by Ranald was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 and is filed under Business & Technology, News & Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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18 Responses to “More newspaper job cuts”

  1. Trudy on February 16th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

    I subscribe to a major American (print) daily 7 days a week but in all honesty the quality of the experience diminishes by the day. The ‘news’ reported is barely above the level of the ads that fill the pages. I’m over 50 years old but like you, I can access any content of any newspaper in seconds, and I do, frequently many, many times a day. I lament the day I finally pull the plug on my morning fix (breakfast & reading the paper in quiet solitude), a time honored passion I learned from my father at a very young age. On the plus side the unique contribution of growing websites like The Grove Project ably help fill the void. I don’t live in NC but reside in a city of similar size to Wilmington. Of course I love the means of entry to the web; it just might be a bit more difficult to enjoy a ruby red grapefruit while viewing a computer screen instead of the printed word. Not very slowly I think it’s headed that way however.

  2. ian on February 19th, 2008 at 7:36 am

    A Star News forum topic on this as well:
    http://forums.starnewsonline.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8841089365/m/1891060696/p/2

    Sort of devolves into [what I guess is the usual] snarky pissing contest in those forums, and into a tangent about the economics of delivering papers.

  3. Trudy on February 19th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    Ian, thanks for the link. Quite amusing in that small town kind of way.

  4. ian on February 21st, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    Trudy - I think this may be the all-volunteer WSN *staff*, from here on out. ;-)

  5. Susan on February 22nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm

    And in the meantime, they’ve started yet another of their datadump sections, real estate transfers in New Hanover County.
    http://forums.starnewsonline.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6431032365/m/9631063896/r/8481054896#8481054896

    This isn’t necessarily useless, but there are other ways to get this info if you want it, and there are many legitimate news stories in the area that are being overlooked or given short shrift. They really need to get their priorities straight over there. The irony of it is that I don’t think these exercises in data presentation will bring nearly as many eyeballs to their site, so as to attract advertising revenue, as decent local news coverage would.

  6. Ian on February 25th, 2008 at 5:37 pm

    R. said she saw what she thought was a new section on the environment in the printed version of the Star News. (Great, new green sections in the paper?)

    I wondered to her whether that wasn’t simply the printing of the environmental blog on Star News Online, and whether this wasn’t a result of the most recent staff trimming.

  7. Susan on March 8th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

    I have now heard a very interesting, almost incredible update to this story: that the entire (two) editorial department has been laid off/fired/RIFed/whatever. One version (I’ve heard it from four different directions) had it that NY Times editorials would be run instead of local ones, but that is entirely ridiculous. I can’t imagine that they will eliminate local editorial writers on the staff, but perhaps we’re on the cutting/bleeding edge here in Wilmington after all.

  8. Ranald on March 8th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    I can see cutting the current editorial department, but I can’t see running NY Times editorials (if that’s the case, however, I can’t wait to read the letters!) They will more likely assign some schmuck the job, and most likely the poor guy or gal already has his/her hands full. Industry news is bleak, and I think we’re watching things from the front row. Incidentally, here’s a relevant Op-Ed piece from the San Francisco Chronicle, courtesy of the GP’s west coast correspondent:

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/03/06/

  9. Susan on March 8th, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    Ranald - that link didn’t go anywhere, too short. Is this the one you were sending?
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/06/EDENVAI78.DTL

  10. Ranald on March 9th, 2008 at 6:07 am

    That’s it. Apologies.

  11. Ryan Tuck on March 10th, 2008 at 9:01 am

    Susan and Ranald,

    Since editorial is a separate department, we “newsies” don’t exactly know everything that goes on there. I will tell you that there will be some changes within the department, but running all NYT editorials is not a conversation that has come up (within my earshot). Letters, as your direct entry into the paper, will be our priority no matter what happens.

    I’ll try to let you know anything I can as I know more.

    Ryan Tuck
    Community Interaction Manager
    ryan.tuck@starnewsonline.com

  12. Ian on March 15th, 2008 at 5:24 am

    The layout of the Star News is totally different today, and looks a lot more like the NY Times online layout. I like it a lot — it’s easier to read and not so busy and distracting from the content. But I wonder if this is related to the job cuts — whether there isn’t some economy of scale going on here, where the parent company can more easily manage (and duplicate?) content across these two journalistic “platforms”?

  13. Ranald on March 15th, 2008 at 6:42 am

    The Washington Post is getting in on the fun, announcing this week that new publisher Katherine Weymouth has offered buyouts to many of its 785 newsroom employees, and that layoffs are possible if enough staff do not participate. This is the crux of the issue:

    “Last year, Post online revenue totaled $114 million, up 11 percent from 2006. Ad revenue from the print version of The Post was $496 million, down 13 percent from 2006.” The full story can be viewed here:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/12/AR2008031203786.html

  14. Ian on March 17th, 2008 at 9:28 am

    Ten things that journalists can do to reinvent journalism

  15. Susan on March 21st, 2008 at 6:48 am

    The Star News finally reveals the exact nature of the layoff fallout in the editorial department, and it appears not to be so dire as all the word on the street had it:
    http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080321/NEWS/803210387/1004/NEWS01&title=Editorial_page_editor_Riesz_retiring_after_28_years

    The boss is retiring and the deputy is being promoted (not also eliminated as earlier word had it.) It doesn’t mention whether her position as deputy is being filled, so perhaps it will be eliminated now that it’s empty and that’s what started the rumors.

    At least for now, we should still have a local editorial voice!

  16. Ranald on April 25th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

    This just in from mediabistro.com:

    There will be layoffs at The New York Times. That’s what Keith Kelly hears — around 30 or so editorial positions, mostly on the Metro desk — after pleas to take a buyout in the midst of an advertising recession fell on deaf ears. They will be the first round of layoffs in the paper’s 156-year history.

  17. Ian on April 26th, 2008 at 9:10 am

    Wow, Gray Lady liposuction.

    I didn’t realize they’d never had any down-sizing before. But this does seem historic — and inevitable, given advertisers’ and readers’ shift to online reading, or to no reading at all :-/

  18. catherine on May 3rd, 2008 at 4:11 pm

    don’t forget our local paper is owned by the new york times company. i hear rumblings that the shrinking newspaper industry is going to be hitting our paper one way or another …

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