2,400 jobs lost in 2007

[WaylonJennings]

:'(

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=123&aid=141422

 

[lono]

I'm surprised the number isn't much, much higher.

 

[BTExpress]

At GM or Bank of America or airlines or a lot of other places, the loss of 2,400 jobs has another name:

"Monday"

Places like that would kill for the "Daily Bugle to lay off 17 in newsroom" nuggets we get from time to time.

 

[VJ]

[Jack Shafer] AWESOME! [/Jack Shafer]

 

[fishwrapper]

At GM or Bank of America or airlines or a lot of other places, the loss of 2,400 jobs has another name:

"Monday"

Places like that would kill for the "Daily Bougle to lay off 17 in newsroom" nuggets we get from time to time.

Or Countrywide or Amgen or Dell or CBS or the twenty-thousand-pink-slipped teachers in California (and pretty soon, Washington Mutual).

 

[BigSleeper]

While I am not making light of anyone losing their job, I try and keep this in perspective. I recall a day in my hometown in 1977 when 5,000 Youngstown steelworkers showed up to work and learned they no longer had jobs. Thirty years later, the city still hasn't recovered. As a matter of fact, it's led to a plan to actually tear down and erase parts of the city.

http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/98127;jsessionid=1F485A74692388B59AF85B93CA598569

 

[jboy]

Of course, that's not counting jobs that were "frozen" or positions that were vacated and never replaced.

 

[WaylonJennings]

Of course, that's not counting jobs that were "frozen" or positions that were vacated and never replaced.

I think that is what it means. There are 2,400 less jobs now than a year ago.

And I don't know how to put this without sounding like an elitist asshole, though I'm sure someone will jump my ass about it, even though I am about as blue-collar as they come and grew up with a dad who was laid off about once a year in an industrial profession:

I understand the plight of the steel worker and the airline checker and all of those other people, and I absolutely sympathize. It's tragic. It's a national ****ing tragedy is what it is.

That being said, these are apples and oranges. We got into this because we thought it was an intellectual profession that would insulate us from those kinds of things. We were told to go to college, work hard, etc., etc., etc. by parents who wanted us all to avoid the plight of the working man.

And, comparisons to factory jobs be damned, our industry as we know it is crumbling underneath us. I don't think we're being overly dramatic when we begin to lose hope in moving upward and onward.

 

[Stone Cane]

I can't believe the actual number isn't much much higher

 

[buckweaver]

That being said, these are apples and oranges. We got into this because we thought it was an intellectual profession that would insulate us from those kinds of things. We were told to go to college, work hard, etc., etc., etc. by parents who wanted us all to avoid the plight of the working man.

There's your national ****ing tragedy, right there. Your national ****ing pipe dream, they should have called it.

We are the working man. Same as the last generation, only now everybody starts out with a five-figure debt.

 

[BTExpress]

We got into this because we thought it was an intellectual profession that would insulate us from those kinds of things.

Maybe people who entered the profession in the late 80s or 90s thought that.

But having entered the workforce during economic times (1982) that were much worse than anything you are seeing now, I sure as hell never thought for one moment that the reason I got into this was because I thought I was insulated from those kinds of things.

 

[Rex Harrison]

My mother in the 1990s: Journalism would be good. It's not something they can make overseas with cheap labor and ship back here.

She's also giving stock tips if anybody's interested.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

At GM or Bank of America or airlines or a lot of other places, the loss of 2,400 jobs has another name:

"Monday"

Places like that would kill for the "Daily Bugle to lay off 17 in newsroom" nuggets we get from time to time.

What is that 2400 in terms of percentage of total workforce in the industry?

 

[BTExpress]

4.4%

But that's not 4.4% laid off, as some vacancies simply were not filled.

It's a loss of 2,400 jobs, but not 2,400 lives thrown into upheaval. There is a big difference.

Our bean counters are hoping for 12 losses in our newsroom by attrition in 2008. We're already at 7. So I guess that's good.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

How does that 4.4% compare to other industries? Not the raw numbers, but the percentage of the totals.

 

[BTExpress]

Citigroup's announcement of 9,000 job cuts is 6.5% of their US workforce. And that's in addition to the 4,200 job cuts they announced just a few weeks ago. What I don't know is whether the 180,000 employees abroad are part of those 13,200.

 

[Write-brained]

I think the industry will double 2,400 by the end of this year. At the rate we're going, it's bound to happen.

 

[schiezainc]

I think the industry will double 2,400 by the end of this year. At the rate we're going, it's bound to happen.

I don't doubt it.

In little over a year, our company went from having:

* A sports editor with four full time reporters, one part time guy and limitless stringers (Plus three office-wide photographers) at our six weeklies branch

and

*A sports editor with four full time reporters at our daily paper

to

* No sports editor, three full time reporters, one office-wide photographer and strict freelancer budgets at our six weeklies

and

*No sports editor, two reporters at our daily branch.

So, in conclusion, our office lost two SE's, three reporters, and two office-wide photogs in less than 18 months.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Will there be hirebacks on a large scale when newspapers become Net-only products, since you don't hafta buy paper and fund a production and distribution operation? That will happen, of course, only when papers figure out how to make enough money on the Net to fund the newsgathering and news-producing operation, and have the technological strength and legal will to attack the random leeching of their online product -- the lifeblood of most blogs.

And when papers do that, how will they do against Net-only sites that have established loyal audiences. We know younger folks don't read papers; will they read it online when the print alternative is gone?

 

[lono]

And when papers do that, how will they do against Net-only sites that have established loyal audiences. We know younger folks don't read papers; will they read it online when the print alternative is gone?

Newspapers are firing people left and right and dumbing down the product like never before. The only way they will have online readers is if they have a product worth reading, a concept few in newspaper management seem to grasp.