Thursday, November 16, 2006
Newspapers crater
On Tuesday the executive editor of the Washington Post, Leonard Downie, Jr., announced plans to shrink the newsroom staff as part of a major transformation of the paper.
On Monday the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota said it would cut 40 full-time positions at the paper. Last week the new owners of the Philadelphia Inquirer forced out the paper's editor Amanda Bennett. Employees at the Inquirer fear the paper's new owners will layoff as much as much as a third of its newsroom staff.
In California, the owners of Los Angeles Daily News recently laid off the paper's publisher and 20 other employees. 101 jobs are being eliminated at the San Jose Mercury News. Another 111 at the Dallas Morning News. The Cleveland Plain Dealer plans to cut 17 percent of its staff.
But the most turmoil might be at the Los Angeles Times . . . [LA Times publisher] Johnson was ousted in October. [Editor] Baquet was forced out last week. A columnist for the trade magazine Editor & Publisher said about Baquet's firing "It is a sign that no editor who makes news first and big profits second is safe."
Not a good time in the paper biz.
Technorati Tags: Press
For a generation the news has been bait to pull eyeballs for the customers; the advertisers.
Looks like they are giving up on actual information completely now and moving to "The News of the World" model where all the reporters have to do is fantasize and outdo each other in weirdness.
But at least we'll know they are lying and they wont pretend to be doing anything else.
And frankly, after Myers' "Good Riddance To The Gingrichites" mea clutza piece ( http://tinyurl.com/y2ktf5 ) it couldn't happen soon enough.
