Lupica is laid off

Somebody with a brain please please tell me how getting rid of people like Lupica and hiring some citizen journalist makes anybody want to buy a newspaper? How has getting rid of unique quality talent worked for newspapers? Keep firing the elders, folks. Hire those citizen jornalists.

 

Keep fucking that chicken, Fredrick.

 

I do wonder where the Daily News is trying to go. I understand that they are losing lots of money. But New York is a competitive market. The Post and Daily News historically have offered, in my view, a comparable product. But if you are a sports fan after these cutbacks I would believe that the Post would be your first choice at the newsstand or on the web. The Daily News sports section was decimated.

And how does the Daily News become more profitable if they see their audience move to the Post? Times are tough but I just can't figure out what the recovery plan is.

 

It's our least favorite time of year: media layoff season. And thanks to El Niño, the cyclical contraction of capital in publishing every few years, it’s going to especially brutal this year at newspapers and magazines.

Welcome to Media Layoff Season

 

My best guess is that sports doesn't bring in the eyeballs or advertisers that sportswriters think they do, so the News is cutting the older and more expensive help and bringing in people who will bring with them digital followers.

So white/black/its complicated writer already has a following, and by giving him a platform, you get those people plus the people who wouldn't have clicked on dailykos regardless of who wrote it.

So you get clickbait web content, plus someone, who, in theory, will deliver more clicks.

Think Esquire and its scantily clad women we love photos, plus Charlie Pierce.

It is an experiment, but like all things digital, it is just throwing shit against the wall to see if it will stick

 

LAT checks in: Buyout offer now official at LA Times


Employees at the Los Angeles Times have until Oct. 23 to apply for the new buyout offer unveiled today and being sent to homes this week. Just about everyone on staff for at least a year is eligible to apply. It comes with a big inducement for older staffers. If you are still working at the paper on Dec. 31, you will no longer receive any retiree medical coverage should you stay at the paper long enough to retire. If you leave before Dec. 31, you will get the previously promised retiree medical coverage (for as long as the company still offers that benefit.) This is for all of the Tribune Publishing's newspapers and there's no attempt to hide that this is about reducing costs. The company's stock price is in the tank and revenues are down, especially in Los Angeles, apparently. I expect to see a lot of more senior LAT staffers take this buyout, especially now with the retirement inducement.

 

Yes, others in the chain being offered buyouts today.

 

So if you retire before December 31 you get retiree health insurance as long as the company continues to offer the benefit.

Somebody needs to establish an over/under on that. I say that retiree health insurance is rescinded for all the working stiffs in a year. Executives, of course, will maintain it much longer.

 

If what I read earlier is true, it is a generous buyout offer for the older people. Pretty much a full year's severance for anyone there 27 or more years.

The same way getting rid of ballast works for a sinking ship. Keeps it afloat just a little bit longer. That 5,000 pounds of food on the boat has definite value . . . but it does no good once the ship has sunk and everyone has drowned. So you toss it overboard.

 

I look at a fair amount of newspapers on-line and it seems to me that the gamers of the local pro and big time college teams are usually among the most read articles so I think at least some sports stories pull in traffic (though a lot of those hits may be from people outside the advertising area of the paper and may not be an attractive audience to local advertisers).

If we look at the Daily News cuts it seemed that they fired their feature writers and columnists. Is it fair to make a generalization that features generally do not draw a lot of web traffic. they also fired their big name columnists. While Lupica may be a case of a guy who just made to much money would it be safe to assume that most sports columnists- such as Bondy and Madden- just don't drive the clicks? And features don't drive web traffic in this real time world? Those are sweeping generalizations based upon pure speculation but does anyone have answers grounded in data?

As for Esquire using Charlie Pierce I have always thought that was really dumb. The Esquire target audience is affluent males. While in New York City publishing circles that may be a demographic that votes Democratic in general affluent males are Republicans. It makes no sense to have a columnist as vitriolic as Pierce attacking the political views of the majority of your target demographic. I say that as a liberal who has idolized Pierce since he worked at The National.

 

I'd be surprised if Esquire's readership doesn't lean heavily left. Urbane, cosmopolitan, 25-to-44 year old men, many of them gay, who are part of or enjoy coverage of the entertainment and fashion establishments?