Posted on 12/18/2007 5:08:58 AM PST by KeyLargo
Sun-Times Planning Job Cuts As Budget Tightens
Could Latest Round Of Cutbacks Lead To End Of Newspaper? CHICAGO (CBS) ― Morale among employees at the Chicago Sun-Times is taking another slip. Company e-mails on Friday notified workers of drastic budget cuts that will lead to lost jobs.
As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, the Sun-Times was devastated by owners David Radler, sentenced Monday to two years in jail; and Conrad Black, who last week got six years for stealing millions. Some say the tailspin the paper is taking could be fatal.
"One person I know in the newsroom said this is the end of the paper," said Chicago Reader media critic Michael Miner.
In an effort to recover from damages caused by Radler and Black, and keep the presses rolling, the Sun-Times' Board has ordered $50 million in cuts.
As CBS 2's Pamela Jones reports, a lot of reporters are wondering about the future of the Sun-Times. A memo from the editor e-mailed to the staff on Friday said newsroom positions would be eliminated, but company officials will not say which jobs or how many.
The first e-mail, from the editor of the newspaper, says it has no choice but to make the cut because of declining advertising and circulation revenues.
Sun-Times Editor Michael Cooke, who declined our request for an interview, said in a memo to his staff: "I cannot yet tell you the answers to the three most pressing questions: How many? Who? And when?"
Miner says he's heard 40 jobs will be lost in the Sun-Times newsroom.
"It's a serious bloodletting. It will certainly constrain," Miner said. "It will limit what they're able to do in the future. There can't be any pretense. When this is over, it'll be a leaner, meaner paper."
Cooke did respond by e-mail to a Chicago Reader claim that 40 people, a quarter of the newsroom, would lose their jobs.
"Even if the 40 number was true," he wrote, "that would be less than a fifth of the newsroom."
"I don't know where they could find 40 people," Miner said.
With more and more cuts, a leaner and leaner paper, and the tabloid Sun-Times already being challenged by the Tribune's free Red Eye newspaper, justifying the 50 cent newsstand price could become more difficult.
The question is whether the Chicago Tribune, which already delivers the Sun-Times each morning, will someday be the only game in town.
"A big city like Chicago needs more than one point of view," said area resident Donnell Ard.
One alternative to a Tribune monopoly would be for the Tribune and Sun-Times to join forces, combining business operations but maintaining separate news staffs. Newspapers in Detroit, Denver, Seattle and Cincinnati already have similar joint operating agreements.
No one's talking about that here -- yet. But it's clear that the time and resources the Sun-Times need to become profitable are running out.
CBS 2's Jay Levine and Pamela Jones contributed to this report.
More bad news for the dead tree media.
So, will be be seeing a “Chicago Tribune-Sun” newspaper, soon?
ping
A big city like Chicago needs more than one point of view...then they need to shutter all the MSM outlets and grow some alternative, non-left/socialist/progressive crap media!
Print media is a generation away from being extinct.
I remember when NYC had 14 daily papers...some morning, some evening..When Sputnik went up, the next day I took my allowance and bought all 14 of the papers. I still have them somewheres..
“As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, the Sun-Times was devastated by owners David Radler, sentenced Monday to two years in jail; and Conrad Black, who last week got six years for stealing millions. Some say the tailspin the paper is taking could be fatal.”
It is like the forces of nature are working to clean up a long building pestilence.
Sun-Times approves $50 million cuts, layoffs
Directors of the Sun-Times Media Group Inc., approved a plan to reduce operating costs by $50 million in 2008. The measures include layoffs.
The Chicago Tribune is reporting the cost-cutting program will be put in place in the first half of next year.
Sun-Times Media's woes include shrinking circulation and loss of ad dollars to the internet. But the Chicago-based company has been particularly hurt by the actions of former CEO and Chairman Conrad Black, who along with three other former Sun-Times executives, were convicted this year on felony fraud related to the diversion millions of dollars that should have gone to the company.
Ebert said he'd take the paper back to its roots: he couldn't understand why readers in a staunchly working-class town like Chicago had to choose between two Republican papers. The Sun-Times can't go further right than the Tribune, so why try?
This is true. The 2 Cincinnati newspapers do have a joint operating agreement. One of those papers will close its doors forever in 14 days, ending that joint agreement.
Too bad it's not the most liberal piece of trash, but even that one is on borrowed time.
They've recently announced that their circulation has increased, but curiously, that announcement omitted that their profits have not.
Thats what happens when they give away free newspapers.
What is Print Media?
BTTT
“Real Americans have nothing to read here.”
Yes, The Chicago “Libune” is even worse than the Sun-Times.
Both fish wraps have online subscription websites in attempts at competing with the new media, but no one is going to pay money to read the same liberal, biased news that is already in the dead tree rags.
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