The announcement of big newsroom staff cuts seems to be falling like acid rain these days. One hundred at the
San Francisco Chronicle, including 10 high-level editors. Sixty at the
Los Angeles Times. A rumored 60 more on the way at
The (San Jose, Calif.) Mercury News, like the
Times and
Chronicle a paper twice slashed already.
Lost in the saga of the miserable metros is a more hopeful story. Smaller papers and the three big nationals are, by and large, holding staff steady and in some cases even growing slightly.
An analysis of the latest American Society of Newspaper Editors newsroom census, designed primarily to track diversity statistics and compiled at the end of 2006, shows this breakdown in overall staffing trends:
- All of the net losses are concentrated in about 90 papers ranging from 100,000 circulation up to the Los Angeles Times at 815,000-daily circulation. Papers reporting results at the end of 2005 as well as the end of 2006 were down by 711 full-time professional staffers for the year.
- Papers reporting both years in the 50,000 to 100,000 circulation range held numbers roughly even in 2006.
- Papers less than 50,000 were not analyzed individually, but my estimate is that they, too, stayed about even.
- The three national papers were reported to be up by 19 full-time news positions, with a small decrease at TheNew York Times, offset by small increases at TheWall Street Journal and USA Today.
The trend has continued or accelerated in 2007. By my informal count, with the year less than half over, there have already been roughly 20 announced buyout/layoff programs, concentrated at the metros and resulting in the loss of roughly 650 jobs.
There is no equivalent of the ASNE newsroom census for broadcast. However Bob Papper of Ball State University surveys news directors annually. He has found the staffing at local broadcast news operations steady or slightly up for the last several years after cuts earlier in the decade. In the latest survey, published in October 2006, 34 percent of directors said they expected to increase staff in the coming year; only 3 percent said they expected cuts.
The ASNE census reported total employment in the newsrooms of American dailies of 57,000 full-time professionals. Surprisingly, that is actually more than the 56,400 reported as of the end of 2000. When a big advertising recession struck in 2001, the first round of cuts followed.
The increase is mainly a difference in whom the ASNE now counts. For 2005, the census for the first time included an estimated 1,300 positions at free dailies. This year's census counted about 2,000 full-time journalists working online only -- a category previously excluded. The directions were also rewritten to make clear that those who worked on both print and online should be included in the regular newsroom count.
So, on an apples-to-apples basis, the running total since 2000 is probably a loss of between 3,500 or more newsroom jobs. But getting the count more inclusive also reflects that there has been realignment of staff to growing online enterprises as well as youth, foreign language and commuter-targeted free dailies. It's not just layoffs, buyouts and attrition that are cutting into the number of bodies available to put out tomorrow's paper.
There is another reason the aggregate picture on newsroom employment is not quite as bad as you would assume reading the worst-case stories that are staples of Romenesko and widely reported elsewhere. Like a plane landing without crashing, keeping staffing steady doesn't really qualify as news. But as I read the numbers for individual papers each year (provided on a confidential basis for analysis by ASNE), there are always plenty of papers staying about even with the previous year or increasing modestly.
Even among larger papers, there are a handful of usual suspects who have had success with heavy daily zoning and who have kept their newsroom staffs well above average for their circulation. Examples include the Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram, the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago and Poynter's St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.
The robust newsroom staffing numbers at smaller papers are not all that surprising if you assume that the trends in editorial spending roughly track business results. Metros are getting the worst of it both in circulation losses and in rapid erosion of an enormously lucrative classified-advertising base. Smaller newspapers come closer to being the only game in town for a full local-news report and a favorite for both retail and classified advertisers.
But all is not rosy at smaller papers as business pressures seep down. Mike Pride, editor of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor (circulation, 20,000), said in a telephone interview that the paper had held staff even through 2006. But after a bad first half, he has let five positions go dark so far this year. With a staff count in the mid-40s, he said, "That's a relatively significant decrease." The paper always makes a big effort on the New Hampshire primary, and, Pride added, he has turned most of the editing over to his managing editor and made himself a reporter.
The executive editor of a southern newspaper in the 50,000 to 100,000 range, who asked for anonymity because of "corporate sensitivity," said his paper is one that has kept newsroom staffing steady. That's a little misleading, however, he said, because the newsroom has taken on responsibility for four specialty publications in recent years, resulting in "a net loss of about a dozen for the basic paper."
Still, this uneven pattern of cuts and increases suggests that the traditional career path for an ambitious journalist may be due for some rethinking. Certainly there is a higher degree of job security now at most papers less than 100,000 circulation than at any but a few metros. You're not going to get big-city pay in midsized communities, but you probably can go to work without worrying that you and your craft have become obsolete or lightly valued by former readers gone digital.
For me, a cheering break from looking at bad-to-worse newspaper revenue numbers was serving as a judge this winter for the New England Newspaper Association contest. The best of the best were not just good little papers, they were good papers period. They displayed excellent writing, strong project and investigative work, nimble breaking news performance and sparkling design. Specifically I'm thinking of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Pride's Concord Monitor, The (Nashua, N.H.) Telegraph and The (New London, Conn.) Day (all independently owned, by the way).
All those newspapers give off a distinctive sense of their communities. Those who want a model for hyper-local coverage might want to check out the Brookline TAB, a massive weekly covering that unusual Boston city-within-a-city.
Back in metroland, better revenue results do not seem in the cards for at least another 18 months, so even more rounds of cuts are likely. Lately the trend has been not just early retirement for veterans but a shake-up in assignments for many who stay. That is bracing for those who find adventure in new roles as the industry works through an extended transition but may be less satisfying for editors and writers who had hoped to practice the craft in more traditional ways indefinitely.
A Note on the Numbers
ASNE mails its census form to all daily newspapers. This year it received responses from 932 of 1,415 newsrooms surveyed. ASNE then projects, using circulation bands, for the non-reporting papers. For instance, if there were 20 papers in the 250,000 to 500,000 circulation category, and 18 reported an average count of 300 full-time news professionals, ASNE would add another 300 each for the two missing papers. The primary purpose of the census is to track gains or losses in newsroom diversity, but a by-product is the best available estimate of total newsroom employment.
News staff is counted in several different ways in the industry. The ASNE census is limited to full-time journalists, excluding both part-timers and non-professionals like clerks. In reporting job cuts or the size of its newsroom, a newspaper is more likely to use a headcount, including part-timers and all newsroom jobs. That total runs about 20 to 25 percent higher than ASNE's. For internal budgeting, newspapers more typically use full-time equivalent positions (FTE's), which takes into account part-timers and, in some organizations, overtime worked.
In an earlier study of the ASNE census published in December 2002, we also analyzed staff per 1,000 circulation -- a way of comparing the staffing commitment of papers of different sizes. That appears less meaningful now as circulation falls quickly and newsrooms are contributing to online and specialty publications.
Leslie Pelley provided Excel analysis for this article.
I was laid off from a paper between 50,000 and...
