U.S. media jobs slashed 88 percent ...( job cuts SURGED in 2006)

UPI ^ | Jan. 25 -2007

[IrishMike]

It goes along with the decline in public education and journalism education.
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.
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Remind me of the 'dumbing down of America' statement, but for the life of me I cannot remember who, when or where !
(I just realized what I wrote ... I'm dumbed down tired)

[libs_kma]

Theres a liberal puke writer at this paper that I email every so often to point out how biased and completely stupid she is. I do this maybe 3 or four times a year, nothing consistent or steady.

Well, she remembers me and always responds really arrogant and defensive of her perspective.

The last time I emailed her was right after the Philly Enquirer hacked a ton of liberals. I told her she's going to be the next idiot to hit the streets.

She didn't email me back this time. The first time she didn't in probably 7 or 8 emails. I think she (they) finally see the writing on the wall. :)

[GSlob]

Well, as the amount of new decreases, so is the number of personnel involved. In the good old days there was a lot of news: a king had a diarrhea bout, or two ambassadors got into a spat over the precedence, or, say, a storm damaged city vineyards and, since witchcraft was suspected, the local inquisitor would take a whole half-page ad in a local fishwrap and provide a hotline number to call. And now?

[Ciexyz]

Great photo.

[Levante]

"Sniff. Boo hoo. Not. Those hypocritical and dishonest bastards are getting exacly what they deserve."

Exactly. Eff' em.

[redpoll]

Hey, I'm one of those media people. Happily, I got out of the print media in 1995 because I could already see the writing on the wall, so to speak. The process leading to the death of the media can actually be documented - perhaps someone will write a book about it.

At first, around 1900, all journalism was yellow and heavily biased. It was raw, rude, crude, and heaps of fun to read. By the 1920s there was a change in attitude to the "objective" school of reporting, where the news was supposed to be "just the facts" and reporters and editors were "gatekeepers of knowledge." As time went on, newsgathering became seen as an elite profession, rather than the last resort for drunk novelist has-beens and ne'er do wells. Sometime in the middle 1960s writers like Thomas Wolfe, Joan Didion, and Truman Capote began to write "literary journalism," in which styles used in fiction were incorporated into the news. At the same time, print newspapers start consolidation and the long slide downward for per capita circulation becomes noticable. Twenty years later, everyone is trying to be a combination of Capote and Woodward and Bernstein. Advocacy journalism rules; objectivity is spoken like a mantra, but no one really believes it. Circulation continues a decline; the print media blames television. Newspapers become a monopoly. Elitist attitudes in newsrooms reach a crescendo; reporters want to change the world; editors seek advocacy; publishers, holding a monopoly, rake in the cash as the only place in town to print classified ads and public notices. Circulation declines more; the print media blames cable outlets like CNN. Finally, in our era, publishers lose their monopoly due to the Internet; shrinking staff numbers mean that few people seek newspaper jobs, leaving behind those who cut their teeth during the advocacy and Woodward and Bernstein error; circulation keeps dropping, which is blamed on the Internet.

Not surprisingly, Limbaugh and Savage and Dr. Laura and Hannity and O'Reilly and Art Bell (yeah, even him) have a surge of popularity by essentially mirroring the successful techniques of journalism from the turn of the 20th century. People love bias and pointing opinion as long as it is presented as such. The print media hides their advocacy behind the lie of "objectivity." (I know this personally, having worked there for 20 years.) People don't like being lied to, for starters, and the advocacy isn't popular. The talk show advocates, on the other hand, do appeal to popular opinion.

Just a quick tour. Someday newspapers will join poetry journals at the edge of the literate world.

[redpoll]

"...Woodward and Bernstein error..."

Of course I mean ERA, but talk about your Freudian slip.

[IrishMike]

- perhaps someone will write a book about it.

You could be working on one ?????

[potlatch]

Thanks abb

[Chode]

shakes head laughing at all the rat journalism majors out there... wondering if they ever really read the news???

there's a lot of openings out there... just NONE of them will be refilled. 8^) good luck suckers.

[Candor7]

88%? Lets shoot for 100%.

This is waht happens to liers,journalism has become a massive propaganda machine, and finally the public has decided they do not want to pay for jingoistic propaganda. Even liberal socialist moonbat whackos won't shell out money for subsriptions to their own propaganda rags.

Tank you MSM drive by Slimes! Your demise will not come soon enough to suit me! Next it will be some of the major TV networks.

[Grampa Dave]

Once the dinosaur MSM execs get used to the taste of the blood of their fired employees/mediots. Future firings became easier and will serve as serial punishment for their peon mediots, whenever bad results are reported.

The MSM execs/high priests and priestesses have become blood thirsty and gladly became Aztec High Priests in their dealings with their underlings. They will eagerily use human sacrifices/firings to appease the evil Bottom Line Gods of the business world. Top management knows that there is no place for them to run to for a big paycheck. So they will gladly sacrifice the peon mediots under them to stay employed until they too are sacrificed.

Now every MSM mediot/employee is just one personality conflict or bad hair day from being sacrificed to the MSM Gods, er, fired.

[Grampa Dave]

The Sky is falling for so called journalism majors across the land. If they lose their current paycheck, they might not find another job.

[Grampa Dave]

Media companies, including the New York Times Co. and Time Inc., have already laid off 2,000 employees in 2007, Challenger noted, saying the cuts suggested the downsizing trend would continue.

If this monthly rate continues, 2006 will be looked as a pretty good year for Mediot employees.

[Milhous]

Apparently television organizations like Parson's CNN, Redstone's CBS, and Immelt's NBC took most of the hit because E&P's Jennifer Saba says that total fishwrap layoffs actually declined in 2006. Saba enumerates larger fishwrap layoffs at the end of her story.

SPECIAL REPORT: Job Cuts in 2006 Painful -- But Fewer Than in 2005

By Jennifer Saba

Published: January 26, 2007 11:05 AM ET

NEW YORK The crises at massive newspaper companies, the drought of advertising revenue, plunging circulation, barren foreign bureaus, withered news pages, a torrent of pink slips, the wrath of Wall Street -- and yet, for all that, the number of jobs lost in 2006, at least at the larger metro dailies, was somewhat less than those lost in 2005.

For the second year, E&P conducted an informal review of larger newspapers that made cuts and found the industry shed at least 1,000 jobs. In our 2005 survey we tallied a loss of more than 2,000.

Bear Stearns did its own analysis and estimated that the industry lost 1,520 positions in 2006 versus 2,500 positions in 2005.

E&P's figure (see details below) counts mainly the large and mid-sized papers grabbing headlines -- from buyouts at The Dallas Morning News to reductions at the San Jose Mercury News. The review took into account papers and/ or companies that publicly announced reductions.

Some made the announcements but would not disclose final numbers. The Orange County (Calif.) Register, for example, said at the end of September, it was extending voluntary severance packages companywide. Executives declined a request for the total number accepted.

The decline in the rate of job cuts in the past year, while still painful, suggests that bigger metros -- exposed first and hit the hardest by industry transitions (read: the Internet) -- have almost reached their floor while smaller papers are just now beginning to slash.

In a report from Fitch Ratings, which covers large public companies, analysts expect labor costs to be much more difficult to reduce in 2007: "Most newspapers have been cutting staff for several years, and while they may not yet have achieved optimal utilization of their staffs, Fitch believes cultural issues and union affiliates could obstruct meaningful labor-related cost-cutting."

The downsizing is a result of not only declining revenue but a restructuring of the industry as companies try to find more ways to become efficient. Increased outsourcing is one reason, said Barbara Cohen, president and founder of the Chicago-based Kannon Consulting. "We are already seeing that and we are going to see more of it," she said.

The rethinking is hitting all departments, not just the newsroom, and all levels, not just the rank-and-file. For every ad sales guy pink slipped, there's a vice president of advertising escorted out the door.

The Alameda Newspaper Group, the Bay Area-arm of MediaNews Group, said it was slashing jobs in news, advertising, circulation, production, and finance affecting papers like the Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune. It outsourced its advertising production department to a company based in India -- a similar move made by The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio -- and kicked some high level executives to the curb, like the vice president/advertising, the vice president/circulation, and the vice president/editor.

But also consider that for every job eliminated, publishers might be creating at least some new ones. The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., slashed 80 jobs but created an additional 30 in its online division.

Expect more of those kinds of moves, said newspaper analyst John Morton: "I don't know if it's settled yet how to determine what [staffing] you need on the Web side of the business."

That old-rule of thumb in the newsroom that ties one editorial position for every 1,000 copies of circulation -- a metric whose origins are "cloaked in mystery", noted Morton -- could go by the wayside. (The Inland Press Association's Executive Director Ray Carlson, whose organization has been measuring newsroom staffing for 90 years, thinks that conventional wisdom sprang from the data itself.)

Said Morton: "If the newspaper business continues to shrink in circulation size and advertising continues to be weak" -- he forecasts ad revenue will be down 1% to 2% in 2006 -- "it wouldn't surprise me to see more [cuts]."

The pace of job cuts at large dailies may be slowing but 2007 is barely four weeks old and already major newspapers announced buyouts -- and more alarming -- layoffs. The Philadelphia Inquirer fired 68, the St. Paul Pioneer Press laid off 9 and The Boston Globe and Worcester Telegram & Gazette needs to shed 125 positions through buyouts.

"I think there is much more uncertainty," said Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley. "The use of layoffs as opposed to buyouts really does change the dynamic between management and employees. It's a long-term morale problem that will continue."

**
2006 Jobs Cuts (partial list):

Newsday, Jan. 6: 60 cuts mostly drivers and pressman

The Cincinnati Post, Jan. 18: 5 newsroom buyouts

Dow Jones & Co., Feb. 22: 20 management positions

International Herald Tribune, March 3: 36 cuts companywide

The Washington Post, March 10: 80 newsroom buyouts

The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.), May 17: 50 newsroom cuts with severance

Today's Local News (Escondido, Calif.), Sept. 13: 27 companywide

The Dallas Morning News, Sept. 14: 111 newsroom buyouts

Akron Beacon Journal, Sept. 21: 67 companywide with severance

Journal Register Co., Michigan Division, Sept. 27: 82 positions in production, distribution, and administration

The Orange County Register, Sept. 29: would not disclose, companywide voluntary severance

The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Oct. 17: 64 newsroom buyouts, other positions companywide

The San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 1: 67 companywide buyouts

Los Angeles Daily News, Nov. 2: 21 cuts

The Columbus Dispatch, Nov. 11: 90 advertising with severance

Alameda News Group, Nov. 11: 8 newsroom cuts, several more companywide

St. Paul Pioneer Press, Nov. 13: 20 cuts in advertising, technology, production, circulation; 21 editorial buyouts

Denver Newspaper Agency, Nov.13: 94 cuts in advertising, circulation, finance, IT

The Sacramento Bee, Nov. 22: 20 cuts in circulation and advertising with severance; 9 editorial buyouts

Kitsap Sun (Bremerton, Wash.), Dec. 4: 9 cuts editorial voluntary with severance

San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 6: 35 layoffs companywide

[Teacher317]

The Journalism School is for those who flunk out of their university's School of Education... and the Ed major is notorious for being the primary fall-back position for those who can't hack their liberal arts coursework.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for posting this summary. The comments below indicate that things may get really hot between the union mediots and management mediots in 2007:

"The pace of job cuts at large dailies may be slowing but 2007 is barely four weeks old and already major newspapers announced buyouts -- and more alarming -- layoffs. The Philadelphia Inquirer fired 68, the St. Paul Pioneer Press laid off 9 and The Boston Globe and Worcester Telegram & Gazette needs to shed 125 positions through buyouts."

"I think there is much more uncertainty," said Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley. "The use of layoffs as opposed to buyouts really does change the dynamic between management and employees. It's a long-term morale problem that will continue."

[potlatch]

The Sky is falling for so called journalism majors across the land

That is very true. It must be an alarming thought to all the journalism majors in school right now!

[devolve]

No overseas press except for Iraqis collaborating with Al Qaeda

We'll have to make sure the MSM is not ripping off FR's copyrighted material now!

[potlatch]

I guess I'm dense tonight but what is copyrighted on Free Republic?