N.Y. Times to reduce page size, close plant, cut 1,050 jobs

AP via The Houston Chronicle ^ | 07/18/2006 | Unknown

[oxcart]

NEW YORK -- The New York Times plans to cut 1,050 jobs and shrink the size of its pages in 2008, making them one-and-a-half inches narrower, the newspaper reported in today's edition.

ADVERTISEMENT The job cuts include 800 positions at a New Jersey printing plant whose workload will shift to another in New York City, the article said, estimating the moves would save $42 million per year.

The reduction in the size of its pages would mean a loss of 11 percent of the space devoted to news, but the newspaper plans to add pages to make up for about half of that loss.

"That's a number that I think we can live with quite comfortably," Executive Editor Bill Keller was quoted as saying. "The smaller news space would require tighter editing and putting some news in digest form."

The article, noting that USA Today and The Washington Post have cut their size, pointed to rising newsprint costs and the loss of readers and ad dollars to the Internet.

"It's painful to watch an industry retrench," Keller said. "But this is a much less painful way to go about assuring our economic survival than cutting staff or closing foreign bureaus or retrenching our investigative reporting or diluting the Washington bureau."

The change in size is slated to go into effect in April 2008, accompanied by a phased-in redesign of the paper.

The newspaper's redesign, which will account for the other 250 job cuts, and the production changes are expected to save corporate parent New York Times Co. about $42 million per year in operating expenses, the article said.

The consolidation of printing operations will enable the company to avoid about $50 million in capital improvements at the New Jersey facility, but it will cost about $150 million to expand the other operation.

The company plans to sublet its facility in Edison, N.J., which first opened in 1992, and add a printing press to a newer facility in the College Point section of Queens, the article said. Those changes are also expected to occur at about the same time in 2008.

The report came on the eve of a quarterly earnings report by the company to be released this morning.

[oxcart]

Some real good news!

[oxcart]

(((PING)))

[Doctor Raoul]

Raoul's First Law of Journalism
BIAS = LAYOFFS

[cinives]

The reduction in the size of its pages would mean a loss of 11 percent of the space devoted to news

What news ? Oh, they must really mean their editorial space.

[cbkaty]

The Tiny Times?

[badpacifist]

The workers should qualify for sewage plant work elsewhere.

[Vigilanteman]

The reduction in the size of its pages would mean a loss of 11 percent of the space devoted to news, but the newspaper plans to add pages to make up for about half of that loss.

When has the NYT published news?

[beyond the sea]

"N.Y. Times to reduce page size, close plant, cut 1,050 jobs" ---

****

This is a good start.

[coconutt2000]

Real shocker... treason doesn't pay.

[beyond the sea]

ROFL!!!

[Red Badger]

"The smaller news space would require tighter editing and putting some news in digest form."

IOW, All the news that fits the print...........

[sgtbono2002]

If the Times closed up , Our enemies would lose a good source of intelligence.

[Joe Boucher]

What with circulation and add revenues down considerably the times has to cut costs somehow.
I know if I owned Times stock I'd be mad as hell at them for screwing the paper up to this point. Fire the lot of the management.

[Mr. Jeeves]

They should share a format and distribution network with the Weekly World News, that way people can choose to read about any fantasy creatures they like: Batboy or peaceful Palestinians. ;)

[peyton randolph]

The reduction in the size of its pages would mean...

---

More pages will be needed to wrap fish and line bird cages.

 

[Red Badger]

Our enemies would lose a good source of intelligence.

There is no intelligence at the NYT WYTS.........

[beyond the sea]

"The smaller news space would require tighter editing and putting some news in digest form."

"digest form" --- LOL...... everything we read in the NYT times needs to be regurgitated.

;-)

[Straight Vermonter]

[oxcart]

LOL

[beyond the sea]

All the news that fits the print........... ----

****

LOL!