http://longislandpress.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&ArticleID=15241&TM=71586.43
Stop The Presses!
Newspapers Are Downsizing And Are In Jeopardy Of Closing, Why You Should Care
By Robbie Woliver
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
In case you don’t know, Newsday is our competition.
They really shouldn’t be. They are a venerable mainstream daily, and we are an upstart alternative weekly. They have a staff of more than 2,000. Ours is closer to Brady Bunch numbers. Their multitude of reporters thoroughly cover local, national and international news, along with about five dozen assorted other main subjects; their stories stick for a day. All our reporters share a handful of Long Island-centric beats; our stories need to stick for a week. But we both vie for the same big “gotcha” headlines and we both fish in the same advertising stream, and that makes us competitors.
It was easy to gloat after we beat up Newsday in 2004 when we uncovered their now-infamous circulation scandal. They were doing something wrong, and we, as journalists, had the duty to right that wrong. We also had a bulldog investigative reporter at the time, Christopher Twarowski, who dove into the story like a cliff diver.
The truth is, we rejoice when we beat Newsday on any story, considering their resources versus ours-and we’ve had our share of exclusives. If they have an embarrassing typo, it makes the rounds in our office faster than viral photos of a drunk Lindsay Lohan on the Internet. When we make the error (and our worst one was actually about Newsday) we cower in embarrassment. But when it comes down to it, we respect what they do, and we’ve heard that the feeling is mutual.
So, you might understand why it was not easy at all for us to gloat when we heard that Newsday, which is owned by the long-suffering Tribune Company, had just eliminated another 120 jobs, about 5 percent of the daily’s workforce, after years of assorted cuts, defections and buyouts. Rumblings of their decimated, demoralized newsroom made it directly to our newsroom, often straight from the decimated or demoralized themselves. The news of the recent cuts, and the low morale at our competition, at first bolstered our own morale for one simple reason: Our budget had been cut the day before we heard the news. In our case, it involved the loss of one recently hired Web staffer and a big dig into our freelance budget. We were bemoaning our fate: We’re done. What more can our already overstretched reporting staff do?
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ping
“It is pervasive. We’ll deal with George W. Bush’s legacy another time.
So, everyone is suffering. Why should you care about a bunch of whiny newspaper people and the Fourth Estate as a whole?”
I don’t care about your whiny butts.
Frankly, I’d rather deal with your legacy, starting right now. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!! FREAKING LIBERAL IDIOTS, WHO THINK YOU RULE THE WORLD!! HA HA HA HA HA!!!