Always look on the bright side of layoffs

From the “sensitivity during hard times” file, this Virginian-Pilot headline: Pilot to lay off 40, but executives say outlook is brighter.

As the opening graf of Philip Walzer’s article attests, the layoffs “will be the third wave of job cuts at The Pilot in the past six months.”

Nevertheless, The Pilot’s financial outlook is brightening, said Maurice Jones, the president and publisher.

Combined, the newspaper and its associated companies turned a profit in the first quarter of the year, said Jones, who declined to disclose figures. March was The Pilot’s most robust month in at least a year, he said, with every unit recording a profit.

But the profits, Jones said, still fall short of the company’s targets, required to pay taxes and other bills and equipment costs, including the modernization of its printing press. That, he said, triggered the latest cutbacks.

New York Times’ Bill Keller tells it like it is

At least he was honest. When New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller addressed his newsroom earlier this week, he had to deliver the bad news that 100 people on the business side had lost their jobs and then asked staff to take a 5 percent pay cut for the remainder of the year in order to avoid another round of layoffs.

To Keller’s credit, he didn’t offer any of the happy talk common to editors and publishers who insist that their papers are somehow stronger for their cuts and that they remain as dedicated as ever to quality journalism. In fact, he said just the opposite:

Layoffs are an even cruder instrument than furloughs or pay cuts. Even if we are as careful as possible, as we were in last year’s staff cuts, the reality is we end up losing some valuable people, and cutting into our journalism. With each subsequent cut, it becomes harder to keep the scalpel away from vital organs. Moreover, you almost never get those slots back.

Newspaper execs lack vision

So says David Mehegan, who took a buyout from the Boston Globe after 33 years of service:

There’s a lot of innovation that’s going to go on. I just don’t think it’s going to be done by the management of papers as we now know them. I don’t think they have the imagination. I shouldn’t make a sweeping statement, but so far, what I see is just cutting and cutting and hoping some kind of miracle happens. I don’t mean that that’s the character of this company more than it is the character of any other. I just think that, for the most part, most newspaper management is in a state of shock. They’re not really going to be the ones to do it.

But Mehegan is being a class act as he leaves:

A journalist’s business to know

More doom and gloom in the newspaper industry, with reports coming today that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is eliminating 30 percent of its news staff and the Houston Chronicle is cutting 12 percent of its staff. But there is a bright side amidst the bad news.

A couple of institutions of higher education are putting together programs that should give both new students and unemployed journalists the skills and knowledge to attain greater self-sufficiency as entrepreneurs:

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is expanding its curriculum to include the business of journalism:

[Columbia School of Journalism Dean of Academic Affairs Bill] Grueskin advocates adding to the law, history and ethics courses one in business — which would be a first for the school’s traditional curriculum. Though he acknowledged that the course would bridge the longstanding gap between the business and editorial sides of the journalism world, he did not think this would present an ethical problem for students. If anything, he said, it might help them in a market where some journalists have had to become entrepreneurs to find an audience for their work online.

And Alex Pickett makes three

The circle is now complete.

When, shortly before Christmas, Creative Loafing laid off three members of its Tampa editorial staff — Alex Pickett, Wade Tatangelo and yours truly — Wade dubbed us “The Three Amigos.” Shared adversity forever forged our bond.

Hooray for Hollywood and Greg Hernandez

With the seemingly neverending stream of bad news about the newspaper industry,  journalists who fear for their job security can be forgiven if they feel like the victims in a horror movie.  But amidst the casualties, there are a few feel-good stories being written.

When Hollywood writer Greg Hernandez was laid off by the L.A. Daily News the day after he covered the Academy Awards, he didn’t hang his head and mope.

He’s got busy:

It’s the newspaper economy, stupid

According to a Politico report, conservatives are seeing proof of liberal bias in the media as reporters leave the journalism industry to take positions in the Obama administration.

“Obama bails out more media water-carriers,” conservative blogger Michelle Malkin wrote upon hearing that the Chicago Tribune’s Jill Zuckman is taking a job with the Obama administration.

Blogs at both the Weekly Standard and the National Review are pointing to a “revolving door” that spins between the media and the Obama administration.

Let’s get some perspective here:

Former CEO of CNN wants his micropayments

Remember that New York Times article by David Carr calling for an “iTunes for news?” Well, former CNN CEO Walter Isaacson, in a speech delivered a couple days ago, agrees:

But I don’t think that subscriptions should be the only way to charge for content. A person who wants a copy of one day’s edition of a newspaper or is enticed by a link to an interesting article is rarely going to go through the cost and hassle of signing up for a subscription under the current payment systems. The key for attracting online revenue, I think, is coming up with an iTunes-easy, quick micropayment method.

Isaacson then runs down a list of existing micropayment services and describes how one could be implemented for online news sites:

Just say, “the Web”

Starting in March, loyal Sarasota Herald-Tribune readers in Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda will no longer receive home delivery.

Hmm. Where can you read the news without having a newspaper delivered to your door? Herald-Tribune Publisher Diane McFarlin has the answer:

Why journalists need the Internet

 

Vent the truth, post anonymously, feel better, repeat (from Etaoin Shrdlu):

As someone pointed out in a news meeting the other day in Raleigh, “What is your (management) business plan? Chopping and cutting until there is nothing left? The people doing the actual work know where cuts can be made. There is too much dead wood in upper management. We haven’t seen a single REAL cut in the payroll at that level. The sad truth is the people actually doing the work are the ones who get cut while the fat and happy worry about their club memberships and private office space. We have tightened the belt so much we are being asphyxiated. There is only so much resolve people can hold onto when they see a double standard which McClatchy executives seem to embrace.