Oregonian newsroom set to cut 70

[silvercharm]

Just over 30 have volunteered for a buyout. It would be the first layoff for full-timers in that newsroom in, like, forever.

http://blogs.wweek.com/news/2009/11/04/oregonian-editor-tells-staff-it-appears-layoffs-are-inevitable/

 

[slappy4428]

Won't happen until February until the Newhouse pledge ends....

 

[silvercharm]

Won't happen until February until the Newhouse pledge ends....

I think that's why Sandy is warning them now.

 

[flexmaster33]

I thought they just went through a bunch of buyouts about a year ago...I remember hearing some now-freelance photographers talking about it on the football sidelines.

 

[The Big Ragu]

It's now February. ... And. ...

Can someone else verify. I just got word of more cuts: 30 jobs cut across the board. I don't have much of a pipeline, but my two tin cans with a string relayed the message on what sounds like good authority that this is going down. Thirty newsroom people are set to be axed by the end of the month; seniority won't make a difference, just 30 cuts across the board. Can anyone with knowledge comment?

 

[CNY]

I've also heard 30 from people who work there. Last week of this month is when they are supposed to happen.

ETA: 30 translates to about 15% of the newsroom staff, I think.

 

[Mark2010]

Wow, they just posted an opening for a sports job recently.

 

[printdust]

This was probably just discovered after being announced in January. Those damn trees just block all messages from getting out of there.

 

[Fredrick]

Not to be my usual negative self, but does anybody else feel we are getting closer to going all online?
I'm sensing the think tankers really have convinced most publishers that the end is here for the print edition.
Truthfully I think it will be great for some of us who have covered sports a long time. We can break away and compete with our former employers when we are all online together.
Without the power of the printing press, the newspaper is nothing.
I can't wait for the end of the print edition. Bring it on.

 

[BTExpress]

15+ years into the Internet age . . . and 11 percent of our ad revenue is online.

So no, I don't think our we're just going to **** away 89 percent of our revenue.

Just the other day I cut out three ads of upcoming festivals (Armenian, Greek, Renaissance) in our newspaper that I thought my wife would like to see.

How would I know about those festivals if not for the print edition? Where would I look?

 

[deskslave]

That information is assuredly available on the Internet somewhere. The advantage of the newspaper is that it aggregates that information for you and puts it all in one place.

Five, 10 years ago, that was a valuable service. Now, though? There's plenty of Internet applications that will do exactly that for you. It's a bit more work on the front end -- setting up your iGoogle or whatever -- but once you do it, you don't have to flip through the damn paper every day. Whenever there's a festival, you get a notification.

So I see your point, but I question the length of time it's actually going to be valid.

 

[WriteThinking]

I see Fredrick's, BTExpress's and deskslave's points.

But, here is another one: Newspapers know where most of their ad revenue comes from, and yet, they still seem determined to all but do away with their core product, and put their emphasis and energy on things that don't bring in money and that distract from newspapers: i.e. their Web sites, Twitter, video, and all the other current techno/social fads, etc., anyway.

My thought is that, because today's readers don't seem to care about newspapers, the people who run them are deciding that they don't, either, even if only in an effort to remain relevant, and because, well, because everybody's doing it. It's almost like another example of pack journalism.

So, yes, newspapers actually do seem to be trying to **** away 89 percent of their ad revenue. And eventually, they will, if they don't figure out how to monetize the other avenues of distribution.

The battle is between relevance, and solvency. And the fact that only one of those -- not both -- seems possible at any one time is the main problem for newspapers right now.

 

[I Should Coco]

There's no doubt ad revenue is the only thing keeping the printing press rolling. Obviously, management would ditch the costly printing plant (and the workers who make it run) in a heartbeat if they could.

One problem with internet advertising — besides convincing advertisers to use it — is once you sell all the spaces on your web site's home page, various links, blogs, etc., it's not that easy to "add pages" to accommodate more advertising. Much easier to do that with print.

And we haven't even mentioned inserts yet.

 

[statrat]

One problem with internet advertising — besides convincing advertisers to use it — is once you sell all the spaces on your web site's home page, various links, blogs, etc., it's not that easy to "add pages" to accommodate more advertising. Much easier to do that with print.

Um, what? Adding space for web advertising is about the easiest thing in the world. That's what ad rotators are for. And "adding pages" in print typically means "That extra page for sports we just gave you, its gone now...we'll give you two extra pages in an issue to make up for it mid-July because you'll be just as busy then right?"

 

[Ace]

A main issue with going all online is that anyone could put together a website. It's hard for someone to compete with even the Podunk Press, because it's going to cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to buy a press or pay to print even a small paper.

Someone in their mom's basement could easily compete with the Podunk Online, though.

 

[Bob Cook]

A main issue with going all online is that anyone could put together a website. It's hard for someone to compete with even the Podunk Press, because it's going to cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to buy a press or pay to print even a small paper.

Someone in their mom's basement could easily compete with the Podunk Online, though.

Someone in their mom's basement also could compete easily with the Podunk Press. Print is competing against anything that takes away people's eyeballs (that sounds gross, doesn't it?).

Or better yet, someone could compete against one beat that attracts people to the Podunk Press. To crossthread, I don't know that the Washington Post is quaking in its shoes over the guy getting contributions to cover the Nationals, but to paraphrase an old DC saying, if you lose 200 readers here and 200 readers there, it starts to add up to real readership decline.

 

[statrat]

A main issue with going all online is that anyone could put together a website. It's hard for someone to compete with even the Podunk Press, because it's going to cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to buy a press or pay to print even a small paper.

Someone in their mom's basement could easily compete with the Podunk Online, though.

Someone in their mom's basement also could compete easily with the Podunk Press. Print is competing against anything that takes away people's eyeballs (that sounds gross, doesn't it?).

Or better yet, someone could compete against one beat that attracts people to the Podunk Press. To crossthread, I don't know that the Washington Post is quaking in its shoes over the guy getting contributions to cover the Nationals, but to paraphrase an old DC saying, if you lose 200 readers here and 200 readers there, it starts to add up to real readership decline.

Exactly, if someone only reads the WaPo for its Nats coverage, or only reads the Podunk Press for its coverage of local city hall issues, and someone online starts doing it just as well, if not better, and is charging either nothing or next to nothing, what reason do they have to pay a yearly subscription to the paper?

 

[Harry Doyle]

And when those layoffs hit the Oregonian, we will all be well-versed in the benefits of going to an all-Web format.

As for the Oregonian posting for a sports reporter, I'm 99.9942% certain that's not accurate. But I've been wrong before.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Someone told me that two very big people in sports offered to take the buyout but were rejected.

 

[slappy4428]

Someone told me that two very big people in sports offered to take the buyout but were rejected.

That buyout is all of Newhouse, not just the Oregonian.