L.A. Times to lay off 300 and Cuts Local News Section

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Broadcast Union News

By Martin Zimmerman, Los Angeles Times

L.A. Times to lay off 300, consolidate sections

As ad revenue drops, stand-alone California pages will merge into main news, meaning one daily press run can be eliminated. Changes will begin the week of March 2.

The Los Angeles Times announced plans Friday to lay off 300 people -- including 70 newsroom workers -- and fold its California section into the main news pages.The moves are the latest efforts by the West's largest paper to cope with the steep loss of advertising revenue caused by the recession and the flight of advertisers to online media outlets.

"We're trying to get ahead of what we see as a very tough year ahead of us," Publisher Eddy Hartenstein said. "We're no different from any other company in any other sector that I know of."Beginning the week of March 2, The Times will publish four daily sections, Hartenstein said in a memo to staffers.The main news section will carry state and local news as well as national and international coverage. The opinion pages will remain in main news.

The consolidation, Hartenstein said, "will combine the stories and reporting of our two most widely read print sections into one cohesive section."The move also will allow the paper to make the Calendar section "more news-driven," Hartenstein said, giving it later deadlines and allowing the publication of overnight reviews of concerts, plays and other events.

The Business section, meanwhile, will revive its Company Town feature to strengthen coverage of the economic side of Hollywood. Obituaries and the daily weather report, now found in the California section, will move to Business. Classified advertising, formerly a stand-alone section, will move to the back of Sports.

The feature section lineup will remain the same, with Health on Monday, Food on Wednesday, Home on Saturday and Image, Travel and Arts & Books on Sunday. The Sunday lineup will also be unchanged, except for the consolidation of California into main news.


Read more: http://broadcastunionnews.blogspot.com/2009/01/la-times-to-lay-off-300-and-cuts-local.html

[madville]

1. Newspapers' days are numbered in a good or bad economy

People use the internet if they want news and it's current news, not yesterdays. I can read the local paper online for free also. I occasionally buy a USA Today or a local paper if I want to read something during lunch and don't want to drag my laptop around. I have noticed the local paper's classified section is about 1/10th what it used to be but Craigslist for our area is full of stuff, add Ebay and Autotrader type sites to the mix and it has hurt the papers bad.

[roseBudd]

2. Without a newsroom there is no news on the internet.

From DU's LBN

This is AP, newspapers pay for AP, w/o newspapers there is no AP

In Senate trial, Coleman turns to Bush v. Gore

This is Reuters, nespapers also bankroll Reuters

Chavez tells Obama to give Guantanamo back to Cuba

This is from the Guardian

Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets

AP

GOP governors press Congress to pass stimulus bill

This is NYTimes

Supreme Court Steps Closer to Repeal of Evidence Ruling

Reuters

Obama unlikely to toughen Wall St. pay rules: report

DUers who claim they don't use newspapers for information are failing to note the source of virtually all news on the internet. A physical newsroom, with reporters who write what you read.

If the newspapers go under democracy will suffer.

[NashVegas]

3. Look At How Many Days' Worth of LBN You Can Get Now

It used to be a few days at most that could be accessed until you run into the archives. Now it's a couple of weeks.

[Bette Noir]

4. While it would be sad to lose newspapers in general,

the LA Times has been in a steep decline of quality for a few years. It does very little original reporting now. If they cease to give emphasis to local news, it will lose what little relevance it has left.

I cancelled my subscription a year ago.

[roseBudd]

5. without newspapers you have no one enforcing sunshine laws

or suing for access

[JDPriestly]

24. Bloggers will replace newspapers.

Bloggers will compete for subscriptions, publish with lower overhead and serve the public better than newspapers did. It's just change. We will survive it.

[onager]

15. Cancelled my sub during the Clinton Administration

I got very tired very quickly of seeing re-cycled Drudge on the front page. And I'll never forgive the Times for replacing Conrad with that far-right asshole Michael Ramirez. A 3-yr-old can draw better cartoons and, with minimal supervision from a 5-yr-old, they would have more political insight.

I've been in Egypt for the past 3.5 years, but I bet the times hasn't improved any.

And this caught my eye:

The Business section, meanwhile, will revive its Company Town feature to strengthen coverage of the economic side of Hollywood.

Bwah! They mean "strengthen the brown-nosing of Teh Industry, in desperate hopes of more ad revenue." Company Town always seemed to be lightly re-written PR releases direct from the studios.

[JDPriestly]

27. I dropped my subscription after the Downing Street Memos were

released, and the Times waited and waited to report on them. Also around that time, they fired Robert Scheer. They persuaded me to resubscribe -- actually, they practically bribed me, so I get the newspaper on weekends. Since the cut-backs, I note a slight improvement. Obama is a reality they just can't move against. So far.

Remember, all the old department stores (or most of them) have gone the way of American manufacturing jobs -- vaporized forever.

[cyclezealot]

10. So true rose bud

Some just think news stories fall from the sky.. The newsroom is the infrastructure for news gathering and delivery. It's shocking to think news just pops on the internet without paid professionals doing the footwork. Again, we all tend to think, we can get something for nothing.

[roseBudd]

13. Well I am not saying DUers please all go out & subscribe BUT we CAN...

award the papers who do this important work with our page views. Don't give them to Common Dreams for instance, a site that rips off the entire article.

Click through to NYTimes, don't stop with just the summary on DU.

Because if newspapers with their high infrastructure costs go away radio or tv news will not be sufficient to fill the gap.

[cyclezealot]

18. always do rose bud

I am not happy with the details offered by just summaries. Actually, I hate the electronic page format. Makes my eyes hurt. Having your morning print copy with coffee is far more pleasing.. That is , if their cost cutting leaves us with anything decent to read. And, if newspapers fail. Don't expect the electronic media to fill the gap ; because, blogs and TV will not be interested in providing the staff needed to fill a news room. Keeping us stupid. Just what the Republicans want.

[EFerrari]

26. If you want me to weep for Authorized Propaganda, you got the wrong person.

If AP falls apart, which it won't, there will be other sources as always. As it is, we have to collect versions of the same story to figure out what actually happened. CF: Bruce Ivins took off early to mail anthrax; WMD; Kerry loses Ohio.

[Bearware]

6. Never mentioned is the far right shift of the LA Times and the devastation it caused to circulation

When the Chandlers sold out to the Tribune Company, we very quickly saw any information that was not complimentary to shrub and thieves buried on page 18. They eventually stopped using progressive commentators (they fired Robert Scheer in 2005). Eventually the only place you could find sometimes in the letters to the editor and in the "family" comics pages - BLESS THE CARTOONISTS. The neocons eventually noticed the "sting" from the cartoonists and tried to counter with the neocon comic Mallard Fillmore. The Times eventually dropped it and tried to drop La Cucaracha and Candorville. The last two lit up the subscription cancellation phones just like they did when the LA Times tried to mess with Doonesbury. Nothing like having a big negative circulation dollar total showing up at the morning status meeting caused the idiot ideological decision you made yesterday. It appears the cancellations for Mallard were pocket change.


A lot of this has been documented by Frontline:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/part3/latimes.html

The ups and downs of the Times have been well documented: the 2000 purchase of the paper and other holdings of Times Mirror, by the Tribune Company; the paper's Pulitzer-winning resurgence led by Editor John Carroll and his successor, Dean Baquet; and the years of staff cuts mandated by the new owners. Ken Auletta profiled the paper's travails in the Oct. 10, 2005, issue of The New Yorker. By then, Carroll had left, and a little more than a year later, Baquet was also out, along with publisher Jeff Johnson.
...

The New Yorker article is at:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010fa_fact1


To me, newspapers are having trouble and really screwed by not jumping big time on the Internet early. However, you could not pick a better way to commit suicide than by becoming a neocon rag. This destroyed a many decade reputation as a trusted news source and pushed people to other sites on places to get real news. People went to the Internet, to progressive radio (Miller, Hartman, Rhodes, Malloy...), to progressive TV (Olbermann and now Maddow) and most astonishing of all to the comedy channel for real news. This is a repeated pattern just like what happened to Colin Powell. Neocons use up/trash everything of value and only leave turds behind.

The Tribune Company declared bankruptcy and the LA Times is in serious trouble. Sam Zell the current neocon owner is just beginning to get a taste of Karma. Neocons seem to have the "Sadim" touch - instead of turning everything they touch into gold like King Midas, they turn it to shit.:applause:

[coalition_unwilling]

12. What a waste of trees! I cancelled

my sub when they fired Bob Scheer.

FD: I used to work for a Times-owned subsidiary catty-corner from the downtown Times headquarters. Ate many a lunch in the employee cafeteria and got to watch the slo-mo train wreck in person.

[roseBudd]

14. It is not far right shifts that are causing news papers to lay off workers...

All news papers not just the right leaning ones are hurting.

It is Craigs List & Ebay (poached classifieds revenue) and display advertising which has been dessimated by the tanking economy, NOT circulation.

Newspapers have always derived their revenue primarily from advertising, not circulation.

[Bearware]

16. Circulation determines how much you can charge for advertising

As circulation falls ultimately so do advertising prices because of competing media.

[roseBudd]

21. And circulation has certainly fallen because of the internet, my point is that ..

liberal vs. conservative slants to a newspaper has not correlated with declining circulation.

The model (advertising supports the product) has been disrupted. The economy tanking is responsible for the current alarming downturn in revenues & subsequent layoffs.

Want to lose Frank Rich, Bob Herbert & Paul Krugman?

It could happen a lot sooner than you think.

And then you will be left with conservative think tanks still funding the conservative pundits.

[Joe Bacon]

7. LA Times-Chandler Family = Weekly World News

It was a sad day when the Chandler Family sold their stake in the TImes to the Chicago Tribune. The paper has reverted to its old right wing self, which is where it was before Otis Chandler took over. It's just another cog in the Corporate Controlled Conservative Press.

[sandyj999]

8. Detroit Newspapers going to three day a week delivery also.

I have subscribed to the Detroit Free Press all of my adult life receiving home delivery seven days a week. When Gannett took over in 2005 the newspaper started turning into crap. Now there are very few pages and many of them are full page ads for cell phone carriers. Their idea is that to attempt to not lose revenue on the days you don't receive the paper you can subscribe and read it online. I have no interest in doing that so I guess the end of March, due to the fact I have 12 birdcages, I will need to find an alternative. :shrug:

[JI7]

9. they whored for Arnold

[Joe Bacon]

11. They still do

Arnold has been the most incompetent fool in the governors chair since Louis B Mayer's hand picked stooge Frank Merriam who stole the 1934 governors election from Upton Sinclair.

Arnold was put into the governors chair for only one reason--to get Ken Lay off the hook for the 9 billion he stole from us. Arnold served his masters, Riordan, Lay, Issa and Millken perfectly on that. Meanwhile Arnold has been your typical Borrow and Spend Republic Party member whose driven the state to the brink. Just wait till people dont get their income tax refunds. Maybe that will finally move this legislature to impeach him.

[prolesunited]

17. Here's the main problem

Newspapers used to be independent outlets owned by publishers who lived in and cared for the communities they called home. They were accountable to the community and had a genuine connection to readers and advertisers. That changed with consolidation and corporatization.

When conglomerates bought up Pulitzer Prize-winning assets, the first thing they did was gut them to bleed out excessive profit margins. They didn't care about the vital role of the Fourth Estate in a democracy or the interests of the community. All they cared about was the bottom line for shareholders. It wasn't enough to get steady gains, they cried for double digits and continued laying off reporters.

A prime example was when Murdoch took the helm of the Chicago Tribune. His first plan was to fire people based on "productivity." Count the bylines and fire those who don't "produce." So, the person who regurgitates media releases would be retained and those who are working on public records investigations that require long hours of research before a story is unearthed would be out on the streets. Anyone who understands journalism at all would see how crazy that proposition is.

For those who say the Internet can do the job, they are wrong. Very few sites are generating original content and even fewer can deliver the kind of content that brings government to the knees of the people. I highly doubt the painstaking investigation and documentation that brought Nixon down would have occurred on the Internet.

And to those who say the value of their local paper has been marginalized, I agree. The newspaper staffs left in the wake of these changes are an empty shell of what they used to be. Most of the old-timers have been forced out and the newbies out their have no one to take them under their wing and show them the ropes. Newspapers in many cities and towns have been reduced to "shoppers."

Democracy will suffer without a strong media, no matter what form it takes.

[roseBudd]

20. And the least we can do is not read a newsroom generated article on a site that poached...

it like Common Dreams.

I applaud DU for not allowing full articles in LBN.

[rvablue]

25. Indeed, it will suffer and one has to wonder,

without newspapers, will it survive?

Due to your insight,I take it you've worked in the biz. So have I. And I think those who have not are misled into thinking that TV and internet journalists will just pick up the torch.

Print journalism has been one of the cornerstones of our democracy.

I'm personally sad (devastated really) that the "American Newspaper" is dying. But I also tremble to think who will get away with what without newspapers there to watch them.

[Irreverend IX]

29. The macaca investigation that brought George Allen down was conducted on the Internet.

Compared to traditional print media, the Net is the best hope for investigative journalism in the future. A blogger who self-publishes has a lot more incentive to go after explosive, controversial stories than a newspaper reporter; the reporter has a reliable source of income as long as they keep producing content, whereas most bloggers have to work hard to keep people interested and make money. Newspapers also have strong incentives not to rock the boat, as it could get them shunned by corporate advertisers. A blogger who uncovers something like the Mark Foley IMs sees an opportunity for fame and fortune, whereas a newspaper editor thinks about the trouble the paper could get in by printing something like that.

It's important to understand that the ideal of objective journalism wasn't established because writers and editors got together one day and decided to embark on a holy quest to find the truth. It was a business decision. Objectivity came into fashion after the Civil War because publishers realized that businesses preferred to run ads in newspapers that weren't blatantly serving a particular political ideology, because it would alienate potential customers who weren't of that ideology. The same business conditions exist on the Internet, and once Internet use becomes truly ubiquitous there will be online news outlets with full newsrooms and correspondent networks.

[prolesunited]

30. Perhaps someday it will be

but it's not there yet, not that it doesn't have a role already, like the incident you cited. But, there's a lot more to journalism than blasting sensational stuff on the Internet.

And maybe for the top editors and publishers, it's all about the money. But if you talk to the people in the trenches, there's a commitment and passion there that supersedes the bottom line. And for many, it is about a holy quest to find the truth and shine a light on it.

[Irreverend IX]

31. The people in the trenches may hold objectivity as an ideal...

But objective journalism will not survive unless it's profitable. It doesn't matter how objective and fair you are as a reporter if you can't get your stories published. It's pretty much inevitable that print media is going to decline severely; paper and printing materials are getting more expensive and the Net is a much more convenient venue for news and classified advertising. But the conditions that led to the evolution of objective journalism will still be present on the Net, though not in the same way as they are in the print world.

[roseBudd]

34. The Macaca moment occured because Jim Webb paid a young man to travel around taping George Allen...

Who would be able to afford to do that without compensation.

Newspapers have attorneys on retainer that enforce Sunshine laws.

If the Cincinnati Enquirer had not sent a reporter to every BoE in SW Ohio, we would not know about the Warren County lockdown.

If you think bloggers are going to be issued press passes on election night you are smoking something.

[PurityOfEssence]

19. It's all Karma for ditching Bob Scheer

Just being silly, of course, but that's more or less why I stopped my subscription.

Newspapers are in trouble enough without the extreme mishandling that's gone on with this one.

[hedgehog]

22. I have considered dropping my subscription to the local paper because

there is so little unique content. Oddly enough, I got the most info about the financing on a local mall from an article in the LA Times! Hire a couple more people to do some digging and you'll gain subscribers!

[roseBudd]

35. That's the catch, they can't hoire more people, they have to lay off people & institute furloughs

[JDPriestly]

23. What is fascinating is that as they cut, the paper improves.

Unbelievable, but the reporting seems a little more liberal now. Very, very strange-- it might just be me thinking they are getting more liberal. Maybe they fired the old Reagan loyalists. Hope so.

[Haole Girl]

28. That sucks

:-(

[depakid]

32. The paper's gone downhill rapidly since the Chandler's sold it off

Next thing you know, Murdoch will be knocking at the door.

[Sheltiemama]

33. My paper is doing the opposite.

We're stressing local news, which is smart. You can get national and international news online. You can't find out what's happening in your city or town online the same way you can in a newspaper. Yes, I know there are local bloggers, but most of them lean one way or the other or have a pet issue. Nothing wrong with that. But your local papers strive to remain objective and cover a wide array of subjects every single day. At the same time, papers are producing unique Web content online. There will always be newspapers, just as there will always be books. We're still trying to find a balance between something you can hold in your hands and something you can log on to read, and we aren't there yet.