Poynter: Philly Inquirer & Daily News to reduce newsroom by 37

[Gonna Buy me a Dog]

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/163230/philly-papers-to-lose-37-positions-through-buyouts-layoffs/

Already bare bones and now this.

It's been an ugly time in Philly, with the Teamsters protesting the way management is running the paper, management spiking and deleting stories about potential buyers, drastic travel reductions, an impending newsroom merger at the new plant at 8th and Market, and now buyouts/layoffs.

Good luck to everybody in Philly.

 

[Gonna Buy me a Dog]

This piece in the NYT nicely summarizes what's been happening in Philly

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/business/media/in-philadelphia-papers-editorial-independence-at-issue.html

 

[Drip]

This piece in the NYT nicely summarizes what's been happening in Philly

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/business/media/in-philadelphia-papers-editorial-independence-at-issue.html

It's a very sad situation. In my wildest dreams would I ever thought that the Inquirer and Daily News would be looking for its fifth owner in six years. If this can happen in the fourth largest market in the country....

 

[lantaur]

Philly is the 4th largest market? I find that hard to believe. (Either way, not a good situation, but thought 4th largest sounded a bit high)

 

[BTExpress]

Guess I haven't been paying attention to population shifts in a while.

Would not have guessed that San Jose or Jacksonville had more people than San Francisco.

Or that Columbus was the most populous city in Ohio. By a mile. Heck, Fargo, N.D. will pass Cleveland before too long.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Guess I haven't been paying attention to population shifts in a while.

Would not have guessed that San Jose or Jacksonville had more people than San Francisco.

Or that Columbus was the most populous city in Ohio. By a mile.

This is one of the most maddening and addictive Sporcle quizzes out there -- name the top 50 U.S. cities by population without setting off a landmine by naming any in the 51-100 range.

http://www.sporcle.com/games/darinh/name-3-biggest-countries

 

[Gonna Buy me a Dog]

Guess I haven't been paying attention to population shifts in a while.

Would not have guessed that San Jose or Jacksonville had more people than San Francisco.

Or that Columbus was the most populous city in Ohio. By a mile.

This is one of the most maddening and addictive Sporcle quizzes out there -- name the top 50 U.S. cities by population without setting off a landmine by naming any in the 51-100 range.

http://www.sporcle.com/games/darinh/name-3-biggest-countries

hey kids, why don't you take it over to the who-gives-a-crap thread, mkay?

 

[LongTimeListener]

When six hours pass and then the OP becomes the first commenter, I think the thread itself becomes a who-gives-a-crap thread. But, apologies for the threadjack.

Just one hint to all: Don't guess Pittsburgh.

 

[Gonna Buy me a Dog]

When six hours pass and then the OP becomes the first commenter, I think the thread itself becomes a who-gives-a-crap thread. But, apologies for the threadjack.

Hey pal, don't you have a Little League game to cover for your 2,000-circulation weekly?

If you don't think a newsroom merger and layoffs in Philly is an important thread on this site that should remain unencumbered by inane interference, you're a bigger moron than I already thought you were.

Anyway, the latest from Philly: Editors met today with reporters and presented for the first time a system of shared content between the two dailies, which have always been editorially independent.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20120216_Inquirer__Daily_News__website_to_begin_combining_forces.html?cmpid=124488469

 

[jr/shotglass]

Good luck to everyone involved. Fingers are crossed in Harrisburg.

 

[lantaur]

Seems like that list of cities doesn't include suburbs (ex. Dallas Metroplex has to be higher), but either way Philly is prob in top 10ish.

Anyway, hard to imagine them eventually keeping beat writers for both papers in the long run. Some bad days ahead with buyouts and layoffs.

 

[steveu]

Even though the Inky and DN aren't what they were (and again, what paper is?) they're still good reads. Hell, you can be well-read in Philly between Philly's papers and all the New York papers that sell there.

It's just too bad each slash of the axe cuts off more and more of the body.

 

[Drip]

The problems in Philly date clear back to Knight-Ridder's final days.

 

[steveu]

Good point, Drip. Hell, you can even make a case that this happened during K-R's final decade.

The former editor at Wichita wrote a great book about what K-R became in its final years and it is absolutely heartbreaking to read about the destruction of great papers bit by bit all because corporate wanted to raise profit margins from 17 to 20 percent, etc. In short, they were making money... just not enough of it.

In many ways, it pre-dated what's going on today.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Good point, Drip. Hell, you can even make a case that this happened during K-R's final decade.

The former editor at Wichita wrote a great book about what K-R became in its final years and it is absolutely heartbreaking to read about the destruction of great papers bit by bit all because corporate wanted to raise profit margins from 17 to 20 percent, etc. In short, they were making money... just not enough of it.

In many ways, it pre-dated what's going on today.

That book didn't exactly say it was because corporated wanted to raise profits. It said corporate had to raise profits. And the reason dates back to the fateful decision to create only one class of stock. Other companies like NYT created two classes, for voting and non-voting shares. But K-R created only one, which meant that anyone could take control of the company simply by buying enough shares. So K-R was forced to chase those profits to keep Wall Street happy, and in the end even that wasn't enough, because the final demise happened when one fund owner decided the margins weren't enough and he was going to take control of the company if it didn't sell itself.

 

[steveu]

Wanted, had. Tomato, to-mah-to.

Sounds like you read the book, too. What a great insight into what that company was like. Now if only someone would do a Gannett tell-all. With the KR book and the "Deal from Hell" book about Tribune... those should be required reading for journalists.

 

[Drip]

I've come to realize that Gannett is the straw that stirs the drink in journalism. Right now, that drink doesn't take too good.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Worse is the Gannett editorial-page hard-right shift within the past month. The rrecent toady defense of Gov. Walker and their distaste for the recall effort -- ignoring the fact that Walker did not proudly proclaim his union-busting inclinations during his campaign -- was beyond pathetic.

 

[Andy Friedlander]

I've done tons of freelance work for the Philly Daily News, and while I'm obviously worried about what's going to happen to that well, I'm far more worried about a lot of people up there I really respect, notably SE Josh Barnett.

 

[Drip]

I've done tons of freelance work for the Philly Daily News, and while I'm obviously worried about what's going to happen to that well, I'm far more worried about a lot of people up there I really respect, notably SE Josh Barnett.

That's going to be an interesting call. If as predicted the staffs merge, what would Barnett's role become?