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More cutbacks to come at Tampa Bay Times - UPDATE / CONFIRMATION

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by reformedhack, Feb 27, 2014.

  1. Screwball

    Screwball Active Member

    I hope the exec who wrote that "we are encouraged" by the financial review, followed in the very next sentence by the announcement of layoffs, is himself included in the job cuts.
     
  2. reformedhack

    reformedhack Well-Known Member

    The Times' spin: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/tampa-bay-times-offers-buyout-plan-to-staffers/2168671

    The rival Tribune's spin: http://tbo.com/news/business/tampa-bay-times-to-begin-employee-buyouts-20140305/
     
  3. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    "Take stock of your place ... "

    Ugh. You may want to take a very stiff drink or 10 while taking stock. And maybe your manager can't help because he/she is also taking stock.
     
  4. BDC99

    BDC99 Well-Known Member

    I don't even know what this means. Does it mean that they are going to sit down with everyone and say either "Yep, you're head is on the chopping block, so start looking elsewhere" or "Nope, you should be safe, so be ready to do more with less."? Ludicrous.
     
  5. zagoshe

    zagoshe Well-Known Member

    OK - is St Pete Times and Tampa Times the same?
     
  6. reformedhack

    reformedhack Well-Known Member

    The St. Petersburg Times is the former name of what now is the Tampa Bay Times.

    The Tampa Times (minus "Bay") is owned by the Tampa Tribune. It was the name of the Tribune's afternoon paper, which ceased publishing in 1982. The Tribune still uses the name on its Sunday edition.

    A court case settled circa 2007 allowed the St. Petersburg newspaper to use the name "Tampa Bay Times" after a five-year moratorium that ended in 2013 (which is when the St. Petersburg newspaper changed its name).

    Confusing? Yes. Which is exactly what led to the court case.
     
  7. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    Just the latest example.

    I do wonder if (1) maybe the business model just doesn't work or (2) staffs were a bit larger than they should have been to begin with.

    I once worked at a 45,000 circ place that had NINE people in sports. It didn't take long to realize we had too many people for the space our department had. (It wasn't like we were sending people to cover the Super Bowl.) If I could figure that much out, I figured the geniuses in management could, too. I was right. The staff is now about half that size.
     
  8. Liut

    Liut Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the explanation. I had wondered the same thing.
     
  9. BDC99

    BDC99 Well-Known Member

    Yes and no. I worked on a desk where we were only assigned a handful of stories a night, but we were expected to actually EDIT the stories and check facts, etc., and there was hell to pay if you missed something. We might have had some fat, but they have gone WAY beyond trimming that fat at this point. Doing more with less works up to a point. Seems nobody has figured out what that point is at most places, and the product is suffering.
     
  10. 1HPGrad

    1HPGrad Member

    Some Times people are chuckling at the Trib's 1A end-is-near stories that cite Times' circ falling 4 or 6 percent to 380K.
    Received several texts that sounded like this: What's the Trib's circ? That's right, nobody knows, but they were sued by an advertiser for inflating it....Suit says Trib put its circ at more than 200K, yet strangely competed in 75-175K in APSE.
    These two make the cutest little couple.
     
  11. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    Does anyone really know the circ of a paper anymore because of the constant rule changes? For example, when the Rocky Mountain News folded the combined circulation of the Denver papers was about 408K. According to Wikipedia the Post in March 2013 claimed a circulation of 416K.
     
  12. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    Miami Herald's circ also is pretty close to 175K now, right?
    Who the hell thought they would see that day in an area of 4 million?
     
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