Yesterday the LA Times announced that it is cutting its 876-person editorial staff by about 17 percent (to about 700). This is remarkable only in that it is unremarkable.
Across the continent, yesterday the Tampa Tribune also announced major cuts: 11 newsroom employees now and 10 more by early fall, as part of a 20 percent cut in news staff to an editorial department of 200. These cuts count an additional 29 who took buyouts, according to the report.
But wait, there’s more! A June 25 Reuters roundup catalogued another bloody week:
- Tribune Co. will cut 100 jobs at The Sun in Baltimore (60 in the newsroom) and Hartford Courant another 60. (Fellow Tidbits contributor Tish Grier notes that the Courant says it’s adding staff to better monitor their message boards. She’s checking whether news staff are being shifted to these jobs.)
- Cox Newspapers announced 300 job cuts at the Palm Beach Post.
The LA Times also plans to merge its Web and print departments into one operation with a single budget.
Editor editor Russ Stanton was quoted as saying: “We’re great about putting out a paper; we’re getting a lot better at putting up a Web site. We’re not very good on TV or radio, and we don’t do mobile at all. We need to do all of those things going forward.”
And how are they going to do that with less of a staff? I’m not sure that old-line print media ever will “get it.” It is still virtually impossible, for example, to enter reader comments on news articles on major newspaper sites. People want to talk back, to have a say, to join the conversation.
Wednesday’s crazy bulldozer attack in Jerusalem (unnervingly close to where my son was in summer camp) which left three dead and dozens wounded, was all over YouTube and media-savvy sites like BBC long before even the NY Times got to it.
Let’s not get too apocalyptic: The U.S. economy, led by a drop in real estate, is sinking right now. This kind of economic slowdown hits newspapers first in areas such as classified advertising. Newsprint, ink, and transportation costs are skyrocketing at the same time. But these things are cyclical. I’m old enough (53), and entered the jobmarket at a bad enough time (1976-77 recession), to know there are good times and bad times.
For media workers, these aren’t necessarily bad times. For every job shutting down at LAT, there is probably one (albeit less well paid, less prestigious, and more nose-to-the-grindstone) opening up in new media. However, for media veterans, this downturn does feel similar to the widespread closures of coal mines and steel mills 25-30 years ago. What can we do with our outdated skills?
