Journalism Layoffs

Poynter on Dipity.

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Another Big Round of Layoffs Imminent at Gannett

The Gannett Company, owner of the nation’s largest newspaper chain, will go through another round of layoffs soon, with an announcement possible in the next few days, executives said Tuesday.

The company’s United States and British newspaper divisions eliminated more than 10,000 jobs in 2007 and 2008, including about 2,000 layoffs last fall, and Gannett executives have said repeatedly that they expect more downsizing, including layoffs. The company, which also owns a chain of television stations and Internet ventures, ended last year with 41,500 employees, including 35,800 in its newspaper divisions. [Click for MORE]

• Gannett Blog has been following the decline of America's largest newspaper company for months. It is shutting down July 10. Take a look before it goes dark.

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Swine Flu Strikes the Downsized Newsroom

LA Observed offers up this fable of newsroom reality:

Editor-in-Chief: (Staring at CNN coverage of Swine Flu outbreak) We need something good and local on this swine flu thing. Get someone at the university to explain how this god damned thing jumped from pigs to people, how are they tracking it, what the hell does it all mean? Get that guy who did that piece on the flu vaccine shortage a couple years ago, remember that sidebar he did on the 1918 flu? That was great.

City Editor: Koprowski?

Editor-in-Chief: Yeah, Koprowski!

City Editor: Corporate laid him off. Health care reporter. Non vital.

Editor-in-Chief: What about that bi-ingual girl we had covering immigration? She can go find out what the Mexicans are saying.

City Editor: She's gone, too. Diversity stories don't sell car ads.

Editor-in-Chief: Don't we have anybody who covers the county health department?

City Editor: Sure, that's Barnes.

Editor-in-Chief: Well, have Barnes do something.

City Editor: She's in Washington.

Editor-in-Chief: Washington?

City Editor: Yeah. She covers government. Federal, City, County, Municipal. She covers it all. She's great.

Editor-in-Chief: What the hell is she doing in Washington? Can't she cover the delegation by phone?

City Editor: She's not covering the delegation.

Editor-in-Chief: What?

City Editor: We had a local bowling team of teabag guys head to the capital to protest taxes. We sent her along.

Editor-in-Chief: Good call. That'll be a good piece. Well, let's get a freelancer on it.

City Editor: You really slashed my freelance budget.

Editor-in-Chief: Have Flannagan do it, he'll write it for cheap. I pay him $25 a story and he works like a... I'll call him..

(Phone rings)

Flannagan: Hello.

Editor-in-Chief: Timmy! It's Bowes down at the Clarion, we need you to do a story for us.

Flannagan: (Moans)

Editor-in-Chief: What's up? You don't sound good.

Flannagan: I think I got the Swine Flu

Editor-in-Chief: Sheesh, you should go see a doctor.

Flannagan: Freelance. No insurance.

Editor-in-Chief: Don't they have that $25 clinic down on Maple?

Flannagan: Hey, when are you guys gonna pay me for that invoice from January?

Editor-in-Chief: Gotta Go, Flannagan. Call me when you feel better.

City Editor: So?

Editor-in-Chief: No go. Hey what about Soletti?

City Editor: In Sports?

Editor-in-Chief: Sure, don't Mexicans play high school sports?

City Editor: I guess. I'll check. (walks over to Soletti's desk). Hey, man, what are you working on?

Soletti: I've got to design these two features pages, then at 3:00 I have a baseball game, from there I have to shoot over to a tennis match, and then there's the spring football practice at 5:00. After that I need to come back here, write those up, get them on the page, and by then baseball scores and the playoff finals should start coming in. What's up?

City Editor: Bowes is wondering if you can get us something on swine flu for newsside?

Soletti: Are you kidding me?

City Editor: Nothing big. Just make a phone call or two and put it in the system. I'll tack it to a wire story and we'll be good.

Soletti: Dude, I'm slammed.

City Editor: Two calls. You can call that pitcher from the baseball team! What's his name?
Cabrera, right? He's Mexican. Maybe he can tell you something. Maybe someone in his family has it.

Soletti: He's Dominican.

City Editor: Oh. OK. Get me something by 3:00. OK. Big story. Total coverage. Sphere: Related Content

Charting "Adverse Events" at Newspapers From 2006 to 2009

Wall Street Journal

Click on image for interactive graphic.

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Atlanta Journal-Constitution Lays Off Entire News Graphics Department

Or, at least, what was left of the department. There were only four staffers remaining in the News Art department of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as of Thursday. We seem to recall there were a total 15 or 16 in that department when we last counted, back in 2002. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Newspaper Industry's Collapse Hastens; Shutdowns Loom

The collapse of the U.S. newspaper industry is accelerating as a deepening plunge in advertising forces publishers to consider curtailing print editions or shutting down altogether.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will appear only on the Internet and the Tucson Citizen in Arizona will close if their parent companies can't find buyers for them by March. Denver's Rocky Mountain News is up for sale, and Detroit's two dailies cut their publishing schedule to three days a week.

"There's going to be a lot of papers giving up days of the week that they publish editions and an acceleration of movement from print to digital publishing," said Ken Doctor, an analyst at media consultant Outsell Inc. in Burlingame, California. [Click for MORE]

• Belt-tightening in media squeezes more workers
• W-S Journal publisher mandates furloughs
• Media General to Furlough Employees 10 Days
• Financing Breakthrough in Tribune Cubs Sale, as Family Sells Big Ameritrade Stake
• Lee refinances debt, amends bank credit agreement
• Sun-Times, strategic adviser part ways
• Newspapers in survival mode
• New York Times suspends dividend to preserve cash
• Tribune Co. freezes non-union salaries
• Chicago Tribune announces anti-corruption campaign
• Baltimore Sun feels Tribune cost cuts
• Virginian-Pilot lays off 30, kills 26-year-old weekly arts paper
• Scripps expected to announce Rocky plans by March 31
• "The public has trouble accepting the idea that news could be in danger"
• Five papers' content-sharing deal "is not an anti-AP initiative"
• P-I union to discuss an employee buyout of the paper
• Journal-Constitution staff told about "substantial" cuts
• E.W. Scripps announces pay reductions, other cuts
• Five NY, NJ papers forge content-sharing deal
• NYT could net $1.2B with sale of Globe, other assets

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Signs Are That Zell Will Eventually Collapse L.A.'s Iconic Newspaper

By Sue Laris
Downtown News

The recent announcement that the Los Angeles Times is cutting 300 more jobs, 70 of them in the newsroom, was a shock, but it shouldn't have been. We should be experiencing grief, not surprise. Outrage is another apt emotion.

It is no longer advisable to turn away from the brutal carnage in plain view, no longer possible to believe there will be any tolerable outcome from the ongoing reconfiguring of the Times under the current ownership. The truth must be faced before it is too late. The bleeding is not going to cease. It is going to worsen. And that result is bad for all of us, even those who despise the Times. [Click for MORE]

> LA Times unionized pressroom employees get WARN layoff notice
> Deseret Management hires former LA Times publisher Willes Sphere: Related Content

Chicago Tribune Plans Job Cuts, Salary Freeze

The publisher of the financially struggling Chicago Tribune Media Group says the company plans to cut jobs, freeze wages and increase prices for home subscribers to help offset a decline in revenue. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Everyone Gets Kicked to the Curb

Less than three years after its launch as the city's second daily newspaper, The Baltimore Examiner is shutting down, a victim of slower-than-expected ad sales.

Employees of the free tabloid were informed of the closure Thursday morning. The Examiner will publish its last issue on Sunday, Feb. 15. About 90 people will lose their jobs, said Jim Monaghan, a spokesman for Clarity Media Group, the paper's Denver-based parent company. [Click for MORE]

> Layoffs At Disney And Time Warner

> At Reader’s Digest, Layoffs Are Part of ‘Recession Plan’

> Maryland's Capital Gazette cuts 111 jobs

> More Layoffs Quietly Under Way At IBM, Group Says

> Mass layoffs up; cuts at Boeing

> Thousands More Layoffs Announced Today

> Starbucks: More layoffs, stores to close

> Cuts at Page Six Magazine, More Changes at OK!

From AdFreak.com:

Barbarian fighting the good fight on Twitter

It's not hard to find bad news about the media industry, whether it's the plummeting ad revenues for newspapers, the layoffs at magazines or the full-blown ad recession. It can be a real bummer. But what bleeds leads, as they say. A self-described bunch of "concerned PR professionals" have set up a Twitter account called TheMediaIsDying to chronicle media-industry layoffs so that fellow flacks know who to take off their spam—I mean contact—lists. It has attracted more than 10,000 followers. The Barbarian Group's Rick Webb, a firm believer in awesomeness of the Internet, has had enough and, with colleague Noah Brier, begun a rival feed: MediaIsThriving. The feed aggregates evidence of media doing quite well, thank you very much, such as the growth in cable-TV jobs, French movies doing nicely and the Financial Times growing readership after hiking subscription rates. UPDATE: Add another optimistic media-focused Twitter feed to the mix: TheMediaIsHirin.

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2008 Total: 15,554+ Journalism Jobs Lost

Erica Smith, blogger at Paper Cuts and newspaper and multimedia designer at the St Louis Post-Dispatch, has mapped the job losses across the US newspaper industry.

Pins in the Google map are color-coded to show how many jobs lost in each instance and can be clicked for more details.

The total in the first few days of 2009 is 554 and rising, the blog says.

Depressing viewing, but the map gives a good snapshot of the state of the industry.

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Let's Start a Newspaper

Mother Goose & Grimm

Click cartoon for larger image

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20 Newsday Photographers Fired, Told To "Re-Apply" For Visual Journalist Jobs

Friday evening about 20 photographers at Newsday on Long Island were summoned to a meeting to learn that they had all lost their jobs.

Photographers were called, even those on their days off, and told to come in for a meeting with photography director Jeff Schamberry where they learned that their jobs have been eliminated. They were told that beginning Monday they could "re-apply" for new jobs that have been created in the photography department, positions with the title of "Visual Journalist" or "assistant photo editor."

"We have the 'opportunity' to reapply for either the job of 'Visual Journalist' or as an assistant photography editor," one of the long-time Newsday photographers told News Photographer magazine today. The photographer did not want to be identified by name because the photographer intends to re-apply for one of the new jobs. [Click for MORE]

> Newsday announces 100 job cuts

> L.A. Times Pressroom Ratifies Contract With Tribune

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U.S. Employers Kick 533,000 to Curb in November

Most Jobs Lost in 34 Years; Unemployment Hits 6.7%

Skittish employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years, catapulting the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, dramatic proof the country is careening deeper into recession.

The new figures, released by the Labor Department Friday, showed the crucial employment market deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid clip, and handed Americans some more grim news right before the holidays. The net loss of more than a half-million jobs was far worse than analysts expected.

As companies throttled back hiring, the unemployment rate bolted from 6.5 percent in October to 6.7 percent last month, a 15-year high.

"These numbers are shocking," said economist Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economics Advisors. "Companies are sharply reacting to the economy's problems and slashing costs. They are not trying to ride it out." [Click for MORE]

> 1.25 million jobs lost in three months

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Rocky Mountain News Up for Sale

Video link.

The Rocky Mountain News, Colorado’s oldest newspaper, has been put up for sale by its parent company.

Citing worsening financial conditions, the E.W. Scripps Co. said it will weigh any offers through mid-January. If no buyer emerges, it will consider shutting down the newspaper. [Click for MORE]

> Early Rocky reaction
> Bloodbath nears 2,000 at Gannett
> Chicago Tribune eliminates more than a dozen newsroom jobs
> Bakersfield Californian lays off about 10% of its workforce
> Santa Barbara News-Press parent cuts 17 positions
> Elsewhere: AT&T, DuPont, Viacom and Credit Suisse combine to take another 20,000-plus jobs out of the work force.
> Media job losses mount with Viacom, NBC slashing jobs
> AP Cuts 10% of Workforce, Newspaper Guild Trims Publication Schedule
> Layoffs at Random House, Simon & Schuster
> No relief in sight as radio ad revenue declines
> Layoffs gut Hollywood Reporter
> Layoffs at the Los Angeles Daily News

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Watch Gannett Layoffs in Slow Motion

The largest U.S. newspaper publisher and owner of USA Today, the nation’s biggest-selling daily paper, is slashing payroll just in time for the holidays. We read about layoffs everywhere these days, but if you want to see the slow-motion car crash version of how Gannett is doing it, look to Gannett Blog, run by former company reporter Jim Hopkins. [Click for MORE]

> Gannett Blog's layoff ticker Sphere: Related Content

Gawker.com Launches 'Layoff Daily'

From Gawker.com:
Media layoffs are becoming so frequent, and our email inboxes are getting so overloaded with tips about firings, that we figure that we might as well start a daily liveblog on the topic. Know about layoffs hitting a media company? Post it in the comments below. We'll be updating this post as new reports come in. So far today, we've heard the Life&Style marketing staff got whacked yesterday and that Source Interlink, publisher of Motor Trend and Soap Opera Digest is rumored to be cutting 150 jobs ... Sadly, we're expecting more to come. [For the squeamish you can always email us at tips@gawker.com (but not from your work account, kids!) or call our tip line at 646-214-8138.] >More »

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Scripps Layoffs in California, Florida, Texas, Indiana

Waiting only two days after their election coverage wrapped up, E.W. Scripps is laying off employees at their newspaper properties in California, Florida, Texas, and Indiana.

Scripps is due to report their third quarter earnings on Friday, and it is rumored that as many as 400 jobs may be cut across the chain.

In Ventura, Calif., 45 people learned today that their jobs were being cut, 17 from the paper's newsroom (about 20 percent of the editorial department). [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Dark Days for Journalists

Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor

Employees of The Monitor looking through a prototype of a weekly newsmagazine that will supplement the Web site.

The paperless newspaper now a reality

The original opening of the TV show "Lou Grant" began with a bird in a tree, the tree chopped down, the wood turned to paper, paper delivered to a publishing plant. Newspapers came off the presses, were delivered, read and then used to line a bird's cage.

That was 31 years ago. If it seemed quaintly inefficient then, it still is, only more so—last night's stories put in your hands this morning at great effort and expense, then disposed of shortly thereafter.

So the Christian Science Monitor's announcement Tuesday that it is largely abandoning print for the Internet in April—giving up daily press runs in favor of a beefed-up Web site, complemented by daily e-mail editions and a weekly print magazine—is intriguing. [Click for MORE]

• Mourning Old Media’s Decline
• Now you see it, now you don't
• Gannett, Time Plan Massive Cuts
• LA Times lays off 10% of its editorial staff
• The Star-Ledger of Newark Plans 40% Cut

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Another 75 Kicked to the Curb at the L.A. Times

Circulation at the Los Angeles Times is down another 5%, to 739,147 daily and 1,055,076 Sunday.

From: Stanton, Russ
To: yyeditall
Sent: Mon Oct 27 08:31:50 2008
Subject: Newsroom job cuts

Colleagues,

The growing economic downturn is forcing us to undergo another round of job reductions and cost cuts. I deeply regret to report that today, 75 of our friends, colleagues and capable staff members in Editorial will be told that they are losing their jobs. This is about 10% of our total staff and these cuts are comparable in scale to those made on the business side of The Times last week.

The severance terms being offered to our colleagues are similar to those offered in the other reductions we've faced this year.

I appreciate your patience, understanding and cooperation during this difficult period. Your department heads and the senior editing team, including John, Davan, Meredith and I, are available to hear your concerns and answer any questions.

Russ Stanton
Editor
Los Angeles Times

> List of L.A. Times departures Sphere: Related Content

Incredibly, Deep New Cutbacks at L.A. Times

2:53 PM Monday

From LA Observed:

This is a breaking situation this afternoon. Editors met over the weekend to get the word and to refine their lists. Newsroom staffers are being told today individually and in department meetings that as many as 75 editorial positions are being cut through voluntary departures and layoffs. Some staffers were approached last week about volunteering, "enticed" with the threat that this will be the absolute final time that editorial employees will receive two weeks severance pay for each year of service when they leave. When new publisher Eddy Hartenstein took over in August, right after the last round of deep cuts, he was asked repeatedly about the prospect of new layoffs, and according to a first-hand report I passed along then:

The question of more layoffs was posed in half a dozen different ways and he said he hadn't been given a target number for the staff, that Sam Zell told him to run the place, etc., etc. He did say (as did Mark Willes and Sam Zell) that we can't cut our way to prosperity.

I've emailed Hartenstein and Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan some questions about what has changed since August and the extent of this round of cutbacks. My sources say the newsroom staffing level is headed to about 650, but I don't know if that includes the decimation of the Washington bureau expected by many there after the November election. Associate Editor for features Leo Wolinsky [photo, right] is holding a meeting with his staff shortly amid strong rumors that he is leaving. Stay tuned.

* Update: Wolinsky confirmed to his people that he's out, citing staff reorganization. Editor Russ Stanton has announced a 5 pm staff meeting. Wolinsky, you'll remember, moved over into the features job during the March buyout wave after years as the page one editor under a few different titles.

LA Observed

> Lest we forget, Saturday was the anniversary of the launch of the free-standing Valley section in 1984. The Valley printing facility shut down Jan. 8, 2006. See http://chatsworth91311.tripod.com/.
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