Media: Fire newstaff Hire Programmers

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Tribune only recent Triumph Red Eye?


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Excutives at the Chicago Tribune have announced another round of firings at its Flagship and the Los Angeles Times with both papers hit by declining advertising revenues and a first quarter loss of 4 percent.

Its hard to believe that this latest round of "spring cleaning" by the Trib. has nothing to do with, real estate mogul Sam Zell purchasing the Tribune Media Group. Last year on August 25, the Trib . laid off 250 jobs and another 120 on July 14. In 2005 they dropped 900 jobs on December 7, and over 200 jobs on July 7 2004. So over the last three years they have laid off a total of 1,720 employees according to I Want Media.

While newspaper ad revenue and circulation is down in almost every category you can break it up to according to The State of the News Media 2006. Many people believe that online ad revenue will one day like 2018 surpass print advertising. Lets hope that day comes a little sooner for anyone who still has dreams of becoming a reporter at a major newspaper. Like me. Damn you Tribune Dream squasher.

While the Trib. is worried about the decline stock price since its peak on 12/32/04 at $82 a share some people other newspapers are exploring new ways to use the Internet to cash in on new ad revenue.

Daily newspapers laid off around 600 people during 2005 which is about half of the 1,200 to 1,500 reduction that is projected for 2006 by the state of the media report that comes in March.

there are a few special cases where newspapers are actually transitions from print to web and gaining in profit at the same time.

The Wall Street Journal is a special case with more than 764,000 paid subscribers to its online version, and profits of its extended online operations, including indexes and “Marketwatch,” now outstripping those of the print edition.

The report had a warning about the effect of cutting staff has on the quality of newspapers.

Our sense based on the data is that deep news-staff cuts, however logical a response to tough times, may be undermining the core product in dangerous ways. The practice is certainly eating away at the range and depth of newspaper journalism in many communities.

What is inspiring the recent layoffs in the newspaper industry? not falling revenue but stagnate revenue growth.

The threat to newspapers now appears from nearly every indicator. From 1950 through 1999, for instance, newspaper revenue grew seven percent a year. From 2000 through 2006, by contrast, it has grown by just 0.5%. Then in the first quarter of 2006, growth was even less: 0.35%.

Newspapers people have been hiring Journalist-Programmers who can make their website more user friendly and using their web sites to cover stories from all angles using interactive graphics. On example of a newspaper that has done this is TheNewsTribune.com Tacoma, Washington.

One other thing that might be causing the Tribune to cut its workforce Moody's cuts Tribune rating deeper into junk since the deal with Sam Zell's will give them $8.4 billion in dept. Which means should they evertake out a loan on anything the interest on it will go throw the roof.