If you've been reading any business or media news this week, you know the corporation which owns the paper I am currently working for has announced company-wide staff cuts, totaling about 1,400 jobs, or 10 percent of the work force. Though our paper is one of the few (the only?) in the chain that turns a profit, we were not exempt from those cuts. They weren't as severe as some papers (cough, Miami), but we still lost about 70 jobs, 16 of which were newsroom positions. I know four of those who were laid off, and I feel very sad for them because they are all really great people.
Anyway, I can't really say anything more about the business end of things with any sort of authority, but the atmosphere in the newsroom has been intense. It's been a strange place to intern, certainly, and I feel both lucky and undeserving of working there when everyone else seems to be watching over their shoulder. There's absolutely nothing to indicate that this is the last round of cuts or anything, so any sighs of relief have been hastened.
But in addition to layoffs, a lot of things are actually happening to cut costs in other ways. Some make sense, but others are boggling my mind. (And I'm not the only one.)
The story about the changes is here, but essentially:
- we're moving from two presses to one press, which means there will only be two editions of the paper - a state and a final
- the problem with this? earlier deadlines across the board, which supremely screws the sports staff, who won't be able to file nightly game stories before the print deadline (the editor said that this option saves 25-50 jobs, but I wonder how many subscribers we'll lose after they realize they aren't getting sports scores)
- the business section is now going to fold into the metro section, which
- frees up the features section to go on a live-run most days of the week (the features section as it stands prints two days earlier, which means timely, late-breaking stories never get a chance in the print edition. I'm not sure what the editors are planning, but I assume there may be more opportunity for show reviews and timelier features)
- the features, sports, and government sections are now going to (scare quotes because nobody knows what that means) "merge" with our sister/formal rival paper, which is also owned by the same newspaper chain, in order to eliminate duplicate stories
On a selfish note, I can't help but feel like I'm getting sort of screwed right now in terms of assignments. I sent out a legitimately strong list of pitches, and I haven't really gotten any feedback. I understand that nobody knew what was going on for weeks, but I hope this changes because I'd like more clips. I'm sure things will get better when I go to metro, but there are at least three features stories that I'd like to do before I leave here that I think will be really cool.
I'm watching Family Feud. When did I become the overweight, lazy person that I am today? More on this revelation later.
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