15% pay cuts at the LA Daily News

There's always the slim chance that there will be a huge shift in the economy and the culture, with people going back to bare necessities and one-wage earner households, and all of our current materialism will go by the wayside because we don't manufacture stuff or pay people enough to buy it if we did.

 

So, is it 15 percent pay cuts?

Or is it 15 percent cuts in the newsroom, with pay cuts to follow?

I'm still confused.

 

As of right now, it's just 15% from the total editorial budget.

 

The college kids don't listen. Even as the entire industry dies, there are more journalism majors than ever.

At the peak, there were roughly 60k people employed as non-broadcast journalists. We're down to about 45k now, and I suspect we'll reach as low as 15k before it's all over.

Meanwhile, colleges are still pumping about several thousand j-school graduates per year. That's *plenty* to keep a churn/burn system of running through them for two or three years before they realize they've wasted their time.

 

You are right. It will be a second job for people. They are called citizen journalists. Can you imagine a job interview these days and the candidate asks some simple questions. Will I ever get a raise? Uh ... no, but you probably will have pay cuts a couple times a year.
I just wish this citizen journalism thing started now to see the editors and managers pull their hair out after a month when the citizens tire of the bullshit, which they will.

 

Ahh, so whether the money will be reduced through pay cuts or layoffs remains to be seen.

I guess cutting 15 percent from the overall budget is better than some sap losing 15 percent of his salary this year.

 

This is just my observation, but it seems like people with 10-15 years of experience have been a little more safer than others. I fall in that range and so do most of my friends, the vast majority of whom are still employed by papers. I've got four friends at Atlanta and they're all still there. Meanwhile the younger ones and older ones are either leaving voluntarily or being forced out.

It has little to do with talent. I think it has more to do with:

1. We don't make as much as the older folks.
2. Many of us have young kids and don't have some of the options as younger folks.
3. Employers know they have us by the balls.

Obviously, no one is safe now and obviously people my age have been discarded like soiled tissue paper, but I have noticed that many of the people my age group are still around.

 

But the prime beats are no longer in existence. In my experience at the Daily News and LANG, there is no Clippers writer, no Kings writer, no Ducks writer. There is no full-time writer covering Cal State Northridge or Pepperdine. These are pro and Division I college programs that should have full-time beat writers, but there is no one left on staff to cover them. The LA Times all but ignores the NHL. The only Southern California paper that I know that travels with the Ducks is the OC Register. The Times doesn't even travel with the Kings. Prime pro beats, at least ones that used to be good starting points for sportswriters, are gone.

 

Great point, mutant. I remember from my time in AZ that after McManaman moved over to the Dbacks, the Republic would use the Coyotes as a testing ground for some of the younger guys. It was clearly the No. 5 beat at the paper, behind Suns, Cardinals, D-backs, ASU football. I don't read the Rep regularly any more, so I don't even know if they still travel with the 'Yotes.

 

The Arizona Republic does not travel with the Coyotes, at least on a regular basis.

 

Gee, I do see your point. Guess the scaled-back ambition and budgets outweigh the spots that actually do get opened via buyout/layoff for internal fills.