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September 21, 2005
The Dying Newspaper Industry?
The New York Times Company announced today that it will cut 500 jobs.
The New York Times Co. said Tuesday it would cut about 500 jobs, or about 4 percent of its work force, as part of an ongoing effort to reduce costs. The reductions come atop another 200 jobs that were cut earlier this year.This is a trend that will likely continue, given the variety of ways news consumers can find information. That's too bad, because I really enjoy reading a newspaper in the morning with my first cup of coffee.The Times said it expected 250 jobs at its main newspaper group to be affected, which includes the Times, the International Herald Tribune and the online operation of the Times. Of those job cuts, about 45 will come from the Times' newsroom, the company said in a statement.
Another 160 jobs will be cut from the Times' New England operation, which includes The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Boston.com. The company did not provide a breakdown of those job cuts other than to say that 35 newsroom jobs would be cut at The Boston Globe.
I think the future of journalism is local papers. The newspaper group I write for is a good example of the type of newspaper that will thrive in this new media environment. People will get their national and international news from cable, the internet and the big three networks. They will look to smaller papers for their state and local news.
If newspapers like the Bangor Daily News and the Portland Press Herald are smart, they will stop running AP stories above the fold every day and start featuring local stories by their own reporters. It makes sense, from a business perspective. Most of the time, national AP stories in the Bangor Daily are hours old by the time the newspaper hits front steps every morning.
This is not to say they should stop running those stories entirely, but they should put local news at the top, not run it as an afterthought in a second section.
Posted by slublog at September 21, 2005 12:00 AM
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