More newspaper gore

The Hartford Courant will cut its newsroom staff and the number of news pages by 25 percent. Nearly 60 jobs will be eliminated; newsroom will bear the “deepest cuts in the news operation since the Internet began challenging newspapers for advertisers,” in addition to about a dozen cuts earlier this year, according to this Courant article. Also, The Courant will offer nearly 70 fewer pages a week.

The Baltimore Sun Media Group, which publishes The Sun and community newspapers, will deep-six 100 jobs through voluntary buyouts, layoffs, attrition and by closing open positions to cut costs and stay competitive, the group’s publisher told employees yesterday in an e-mail. According to this Sun piece, a majority of the cuts are expected to come from the newsroom; officials expect that 55 to 60 newsroom jobs – about 20 percent of the total – will be lost.

The (San Jose, Calif.) Mercury News announced that it will lay off nine editorial employees and an undisclosed number from the rest of the paper’s workforce. The layoff is “no reflection on the people who are in these jobs,“ added David Butler, the paper’s editor. “It’s totally an economic matter.“

That’s just one day in the newspaper industry.

There is near unanimity among the rank and file that the determination of corporate newspaper boards to cut their way into the black is destined to, at the least, make a bad problem worse. At the most, many believe that the slash-and-burn philosophy sweeping through newspapers like a rampant, fatal disease will only serve to hasten – and seal – the demise of the printed newspaper.

One Sun employee who is also a union member said “she also feared the community would suffer from decreased news coverage.

In the words of the brilliant intellectuals of the 1970s, “No doy.” Where on Earth would she get that idea?

Um, maybe from the University of I-Have-Common-Sense.

Courant columnist Stan Simpson had this to say about his paper’s plans: “It’s going to decimate the newsroom. And a lot of people are going to wonder what’s going to be left of The Courant when we lose that many talented folks … Anytime you lose that many people, you can’t pretend to be the same kind of paper, you can’t gloss over it.”

(Hmm. I wonder if Simpson will be stopping by HR to pick up one of those buyout info packets … or if someone from HR has already sent some interoffice mail to his desk?)

The principle is as true in journalism as in environmental policy: You can’t slash and burn without consequences.

American Journalism Review editor Rem Rieder offered this: “The problem ... is that if the cuts get too deep, if you weaken the product in terms of size and what you’re offering, it is not a smart strategy to drastically weaken a product in an increasingly competitive environment.“

And Quinnipiac University journalism professor Rich Hanley said that by holding blindly to its frenzied determination to create some vague, unknown – but “sleek!” – new product out of the ashes of the print newspaper, newspapers’ corporate management may simply be fashioning its industry’s own noose.

“People could look at it and say, ‘This is nothing but a shopper on steroids,‘“ Hanley said.

Well, that wouldn’t be all bad ... right, Corporate? Those shoppers may not uncover government corruption or provide leadership on community issues or win any Pulitzer Prizes, but, after all, they

sell a lot of ads.

In a related item, the publisher of the Newark Star-Ledger sought Wednesday to clarify his publication’s “job security pledge:“

The Star-Ledger proudly provides this pledge of job security to all full-time, non-represented employees who successfully complete a six-month probationary period: If you perform in a responsible, productive manner without misconduct, and you are willing to re-train for another job should our Company determine that it is necessary, you will not be laid off, regardless of changing economic conditions or the introduction of new technology or processes, as long as the paper continues to publish daily in its current newsprint form.

“...As long as the paper continues to publish daily in its current newsprint form.“

Yikes. That’s more ominous than spooky sounds emanating from a haunted house on Halloween.

Enjoy your newspapers while you can, folks. You may not have them much longer.