Posted on 02/24/2009 4:50:49 PM PST by llevrok
Hearst Corp. said it may close its San Francisco Chronicle newspaper unless it can quickly slash costs at the money-losing daily.
Hearst said it will seek "critical cost-saving measures," including a steep reduction in the Chronicle work force. If it can't reach its cost-saving target "within weeks," it will seek a buyer for the newspaper, Hearst said. And if it can't find a buyer -- at a time when few investors are shelling out money for big newspapers -- it will close the paper.
The possible closure of the Chronicle, the 12th-largest daily in the country and Northern California's largest daily paper, illustrates the quickening pace of decline in the newspaper industry.
(snip)
Hearst may also close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer next month unless it can find a buyer. Hearst announced in January that it will close the Seattle paper or convert it to an online-only publication if a buyer can't be found in two months.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
2 of the most liberal rags 9aside from the LAT) on the West Coast closing shop? Thanks for the good news.
Oh No!!!!!!!....I hope this won’t affect Mark Morford’s column.
Here are the choices....
The worthless rag could be sold to a collection of CalPERS management staff.
The worthless rag could be sold to the City of SF as a historical monument.
The worthless rag could toss the current staff out the door and look for a Herb Caen clone.
Just close it already. Save some trees.
This is really sad to read.
I have read the Chron for decades. They have and had some of the best columnists in journalism.
Herb Caen was without parallel, Charlie McCabe was brilliant, Stan Delaplane was hilarious.
Scott Ostler is the best sports columnist on Earth, Tom Stienstra’s hunting, fishing and hiking columns are wonderful to read, as good as Pat McManus’ were. Deborah Saunders writes some conservative good points, considering.
Ruthe Stein is a great movie reviewer, Tim Goodman’s the best TV critic in the land and Matier & Ross have been magnificent in uncovering corruption in city hall.
I’m afraid some of y’all are throwing out the baby with the bathwater here. Journalism, at its best, is great, and if all the papers die we surely will suffer as a society.
I cannot fathom the countless thousands of hours I have spent reading the OC Register, the NY Daily Post, the SF Chron, the Spokane Spokesman-Review, the Las Vegas Tribune, the Anchorage Daily News, the Coeur d’Alene Press,the Post Falls Press, the Larned Tiller & Toiler, so many times spent reading good journalists at good newspapers, and now/if they all are in the process of dying, I am sad for them...and us.
Ed
OH Abbbb
It’s inevitable. The reading generation is dying and with it go the newspapers. The coming generation is texting and playing games on their computers. They are not readers.
The baby will find a home elsewhere.
The bathwater will swirl down the drain.
The Chronicle has become a joke locally. You pick up the paper and you are going to get the gay perspective on everything. The gay perspective on world events, state politics, city government, schools, food, sports, art, movies, music, even the weather. It became a subject of ridicule on the local radio stations. If you think I’m exaggerating go to the Chronicle’s website http://www.sfgate.com/ and under search type in gay. Belive it or not but the population of California is probably 3% gay and the rest of us don’t give a damn about their perspective on anything and are not going to spend seventy-five cents to read about it.
Of late, the only reason for buying the Chron was for the sales ads and coupons. Never buy it for news, it's always several days late compared to the Internet, and there is little journalism that goes on at the Chronicle. Now there are few good ads and really no reason to keep it going. It will not be missed!
Be still my heart.
Missy’s gonna go into a Deep Blue Funk.
True...they are waaay too homophilic, but as I said, there’s some really good columnists on the Chron whom I will miss, like Scott Ostler, Matier & Ross, Debra Saunders, Tom Stienstra and Tim Goodman, not too mention their food section is great, their wine section is great and they have a pretty good tech section.
Ed
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