Newspaper owner fires business-side staff, will hire more editorial

Alan Smolinisky, a 33-year-old "newspaper junkie," bought a weekly in the Pacific Palisades. He then fired the circulation manager, business manager/controller, graphic designer and publisher. In an email, he says he will use the cost savings to restore full-time hours for editors and writers, give every employee a raise, and beef/spruce up the entire editorial product.

http://jimromenesko.com/2013/02/04/newspaper-owner-fires-business-side-staffers-to-boost-editorial/

It's still people in the journalism industry losing their jobs. But I wonder if this is better or worse than the usual bloodletting.

Thoughts?

 

Fire business side and hire more reporters? I'm just glad Baron finally got his hands on his dream newspaper. I hope it works out for him!

 

That's great and all, but who's going to put the paper out now that the graphic designer has been fired?

And how profitable was the paper beforehand? If if was profitable, then the managers should have been kept on, and the new owner should have just hired more on the editorial side and given them raises. If the managers sucked, then the guy did the right thing.

 

So who does it now? The salespeople?

 

I'm not going to crow at anybody losing their jobs in journalism for any reason, but certainly the history in recent years has been to point the chainsaw directly at editorial any time anybody higher up the food chain wants to slash the payroll (as they always do).

Sooner or later he's gonna need somebody to do those jobs.

Presumably if he does beef up the editorial product and readers do like the results, he will need a circulation manager to deliver the increased volume, the business manager will have more to do, the graphic designer will have more ads to design, etc etc etc etc.

I presume he will assume the "publisher" and "business manager" jobs himself and somebody on the editorial staff can do the "graphic designing." Is the editorial graphic designer going to do ads in their "spare time?"

It all sounds great but the bottom line is you can't grow through cutting.


The very very first thing is to call the volunteer copy editor into the office, have her fill out a W-2 and start paying her. No (presumably) profit-making business should demand, expect, or accept free labor out of professionals.

 

The Department of Labor frowns very much on people working at for-profit enterprises without getting something out of it.

 

I have one thought. Dude, your avatar is fucking hilarious.

 

In terms of the biz side people, good for him. It's time these dipshits who couldn't sell ass on a troopship were made accountable.

 

This paper ranks on the small side of small. But it has deep roots in upper middle class Pacific Palisades.
It used to owned by two brothers, the Browns. I went to college with one of their sons, he joined the family operation. I applied for the one-man sports editor job after graduation.
Palisades High, the main point of coverage, was a strange school to cover. It had just gotten into the L.A. Unified busing program and was filled with inner city kids. Few people in town cared about the football and basketball teams (except for Kiki Vandeweghe and Steve Kerr). One coach told me that if I wanted to cover the kids who lived in the Palisades, I should focus on tennis, swimming and volleyball.
They offered me the job but it included being photo editor. I wasn't comfortable enough with my photography ability (and didn't even own a camera) and didn't want to spend my afternoons shooting garden club tea parties, so I turned down their $160/wk offer. (Yes, this was a long time ago).

 

Chip Engelland says hi!

 

Dammit, when I was writing my post, I was going to add the Palihi shooting guru, but I couldn't come up with his name. I've been stricken with CRS (can't remember shit).

 

Does the paper cover Bayside?