Posted on 12/04/2009 1:54:18 AM PST by sinanju
In the wake of a top management shakeup, the Washington Times plans to lay off about 40 percent of its staff and make other changes as it battles falling circulation and advertising revenue.
The reorganization will include laying of about 40 percent of the newspaper's staff of 370 people, according to Don Meyer, principal of Rubin Meyer Communications, which is handling communications for the company.
The Washington Times will also expand its relationship with United Press International, including sharing online sales, the Times said in a statement issued Wednesday.
“We have developed plans to secure our position and advance our vital role in an evolving media marketplace through challenging economic times,” publisher Jonathan Slevin said in a statement. “Changes at the Times are rooted in a rigorous business analysis, applying sound and tested financial principles, and shaping plans informed by current marketplace realities.”
Other changes between now and the first half of 2010 include expanding its recently launched, subscription based, theconservatives.com Web site, and seeking more syndication deals for its new radio show, America’s Morning News, which is currently carried by radio stations in about 70 markets...
(Excerpt) Read more at washington.bizjournals.com ...
Did it decline in quality? I ain't equipped to say.
Your thoughts?
Whether it is the Washington Times or the New York Times, they both have a poor business model of delivering old news on newsprint 12-24 hours after the event has occurred.
That’s why they call newspapers “Dinosaur Media” and most newspapers will not exist, in a hard copy form, in ten years.
The Times they are a changin’.
Seems to me Rush could pick up some media interests. Rush you are letting us down by not making a hostile take over of the New York Times. I pledge to Purchase one a one year subscription to the New York Times if Rush Limbaugh purchases the company.
Well, I was always told by my lib friends that the Washington Times could never actually make a profit but had been kept going all these years by Rev. Moon’s subsidies...
Habits are hard to break. Older generations that are still use to buying papers are still doing so. However, their numbers are getting smaller as time passes.
Papers are dying period. The Internet is today’s newspaper. Why would you want a paper when we can have the latest news up to the second. Drudge, IMHO, is probably the new NY Times of the day.
Leave Rush Limbaugh alone, he does not have the cash to buy the New York Times Company.
Ping~
The Washington Times, while located in a very large media market, has a very low readership, in fact the Washington Times’ readership in ranked 98th in the United States.
But, I have no idea if the Rev. Moon is keeping the Washington Times afloat by funding it with all that money his people used to shake out of people at airports.
The problem is in obtaining original shoe-leather reporting. That costs money and time. How do reporters and editors make a living if there’s no one to pay them for their work?
All any newspaper would have to do to boost circulation would be to take a more active role in holding those in elected office accountable. When they stonewall legitimate inquiry into the activities that involve the public’s money and the illegitimate use of the government’s monopoly of the power to use force, they should be pilloried and crucified.
A new paradigm is needed here. A different organizational format. One that is heavy on the use of ombudsmen and serious introspection, especially on the more biased journalists. Make them answer for what they write if it is blatantly off base, and print those findings above the fold and not in Section E, page 17.
If people knew that they could pick up a newspaper and get serious, professional analysis of the journalists themselves and the facts on why they wrote what they wrote, then people might lose their distrust of journalists. Journalists who stonewall inquiry from within could be exposed as the arrogant twits that they are and quickly ostracized and bounced out. Only those who take the national discussion seriously, dispassionately and honestly would be able to survive.
The answer to bad speech is more speech. All these clowns want to do is circle the wagons and preserve their perch as the arbiters of what will and what will not be discussed. Publish a paper where these egos are put in their place regularly, and you will have a top seller...JFK
It’s a fairly conservative paper that covers the Redskins really well...it’s all I need from the dino media.
In an omen to the soon-to-be unemployed 40% of their newsroom, the WashTimes recently eliminated their Comics section apparently to save the syndication costs of comics/crosswords/Sudoku. As far as the other bird cage liners in DC go, I wouldn’t disrespect my puppy’s dookie pile by wrapping it in the Wash Post, and the other nearby rag - The Bawlmer Sun - is no more than a one dollar Demokrat propaganda pamphlet these days. USA Today? Hah, I don’t think so.
Sure, but the Washington Times has a readership that is only slightly larger than the Spokane Spokesman Review.
The Washington Times is a great newspaper, with a gifted staff and editors...being the only conservative voice in the DC area.
Sadly, the Unification Church’s connection, although not influential in the publication, IMHO doomed the enterprise from its inception in 1982.
While many stores in the area display USA Today, The NY Times, The NY Post - they do not carry the Washington Times.
Lots of black listing.
Their debt that is - lol!
When all is said and done, like his website, Rush is hestitant to approach any interest unless he's secure in the feeling it can actually generate a profit.
I think this eliminates any possibility here. Newspapers are the 21st century's buggy whip.
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