Managers at The Times-Picayune are informing more than 200 members of the newspaper staff today that their last day at the company will be Sept. 30. The Times-Picayune, according to documents given to employees, is shrinking its overrall staff -- including news, advertising, circulation and other departments -- by 32 percent, or 202 employees.Also nearly 50% newsroom staff fired. According to Gambit the heaviest hits came in news and business while lifestyle staff fared better. I'm curious about the sports department but haven't seen any news yet. Maybe it was sold to Tom Benson.
Meanwhile Dambala has already started the larger discussion about what it all means and what comes next here and here. As for efforts to "save the T-P" through locally organized action, I basically agree with this.
This descent to the The Some-Times-Picayune is certainly an economic decision but at its core I believe it's really a legal maneuver to eliminate liability. Newhouse doesn't care as much about the damage they're doing to the Times-Picayune brand as they do eliminating contracts and potential legal threats. They are willing to throw the legitimate baby out with the bathwater while keeping the bastard, ADHD child hoping they can just pump it full of Adderall and everyone will love it just the same.
It's called capitalism. No local, socialist movement is going to stop it. No local advertisers are going to stop it because they don't have enough financial prowess to make a difference to Newhouse on a national level. I hate to sound fatalistic but this situation really is fatal.
The only remote possibility here is a completely new locally owned company set up to compete with what's left of the T-P but I doubt such a thing is possible or if possible wouldn't be "locally owned" by anyone I'd trust to run it the right way.
No comments:
Post a Comment