Exactly right - internet news sources free-ride off of hard news operations, there's going to be a drastic drop off in quality as hard news goes under. This is actually more an example of a market inefficiency inherent in the nature of information as product which can be copied and disseminated for free by anybody, hence robbing it of value, even thoguh it si qite valuable. This is actually the golden age for the news consumer, where we have the capital-intensive structure of old newsgathering, combined with the lightning fast, free delivery of the internet. It's ending however.
My friend just texted me. She works at the Chronicle. She said they are working their way down on the layoffs. She's been freaking out all day and couldn't sleep last night. She survived today, but doesn't know about tomorrow.
Don't we pay for online news media by the virtue of advertisements? Don't blame the internet for killing the news, blame stupid people who don't value information about the world around them...
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6336903.html Chronicle laying off 12% of employees Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle March 24, 2009, 10:51AM The Houston Chronicle today began layoffs of approximately 12 percent of its employees in an effort to reduce costs amid unprecedented change in the newspaper industry, Chronicle Publisher and President Jack Sweeney announced. "As our newspaper continues to report the condition of the economy, we read about companies in all business categories adjusting their size to match current and projected revenues," Sweeney wrote to Chronicle employees. "The Houston Chronicle must do the same in spite of your diligent efforts." The Chronicle will be providing severance packages, which include two weeks of pay for each year of service up to one year's pay, and career transition services to those employees affected.
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2009/03/at_the_chron_where_you_going_w.php At The Chron: Where You Going With Those Boxes, Boy? By Steve Olafson in Spaced City Tuesday, Mar. 24 2009 @ 9:41AM It's been an excruciating five-week wait for employees of Houston's only daily newspaper who are scheduled to learn today and tomorrow if they still have jobs. As one nervous reporter described it on Twitter a few days ago, "Out working on plans B-through-F. Anything to take mind off impending Tuesday doom." Today, then, is Doomsday. To be followed Wednesday by Doomsday II. Yesterday, Chronicle executives told employees the latest round of layoffs at the newspaper, first announced as a cut of "at least" 10 percent in mid February, would amount to a 12 percent cut company-wide, employees said. Several newsroom sources said the layoffs in the editorial department would exceed that percentage. The Chronicle hierarchy took steps yesterday to insure no employees ripped off the Hearst Corp. by spiriting away anything that didn't belong to them. Security guards stopped anyone carrying boxes out the door and told them they would have to provide written authorization from a supervisor. Some employees who cleaned out their filing cabinets yesterday of old story clips and other residual flotsam from their years at the newspaper in case they were fired today had to return to the fifth-floor newsroom for a permission slip. Among those laid off is Janet Elliott, a reporter in the Austin bureau who was given an early notice of her dismissal weeks ago, employees said. Hers was a "special case," apparently to insure she'd still be available to cover the current session of the state legislature, a coworker said. Elliott has continued to cover the Texas legislative session since receiving news of her dismissal. A colleague noted she "has had a great attitude" and expressed hope she would help the newspaper cover the remainder of the legislative session before joining the unemployed. Other employees opted for voluntary buyouts, newsroom employees said, including Assistant City Editor Burke Watson, Food and Wine Editor Lindsay Heinsen and Lowry Allen, a copy editor who wrote a blog in 2007 about coping with hearing loss and his decision to receive a cochlear implant device.
I worked at the chronicle for about 8 months. I got laid off last month they actually got rid of our whole department from what I heard later on. I wasn't to suprised. Cool place to work but the paper is a dying business
It's sad to hear about the layoffs. But it's happening all over the place in the industry. I work in the news industry (on the tech side). Where I work our parent company Morris Communications just recently had salary reductions across the board. But at least there were/are minimal layoffs. Salary reductions, furloughs and layoffs are hitting everyone in the industry. The news"paper" might be dying. But the News "industry" is not. And what has (and is) happening is that newspapers are "redefining" what they are. They are "news organizations" and the "paper" is just one of many diffrent mediums of which to delivery this news. Internet, Magazines, Mobile, Email are the other platforms. And it's the newspaper (now news organizations job) to continue to gain audience from those mediums and continue to find and leverage new revenue streams from those mediums.
I wonder if the guy who wrote this article survived.... Whose brilliant idea was it to spread the layoffs over 2 days?
I would hope everyone at the Chron was self aware and realized that their medium was dying, and started making contingency plans long ago. When I graduated, one of my degrees was journalism, I knew that the Chron was a sinking ship though, and decided to persue other fields. Anybody else think the declining value of education is correlated, or at least somewhat related, to the death of modern journalism?
newspapers have been in decline for a very long time. technology is not the problem, do you propose that we somehow limit the free flow of information? i think we are going through a huge realignment in traditional information structures and i agree with you that we must insure that the veracity and quality of in-depth news and analysis be maintained. but we can't bame technology, we have to go with the flow. after all, we are able to have this conversation because of it.
I expect a restructuring of news providers along specialized subjects of interest instead of geography. ESPN for sports, politico for politics, TMZ for entertainment, weather.com for weather, etc. And then news aggregators can stitch together the news of interest for each profile of consumer (or each individual consumer). I also see a place for television local news' websites to fill the gap for the local crime/etc stuff. The biggest current gap is municipal and state governance, but the death of newspapers will open the window for the national political websites to localize.
I do know what you're saying, again, but they have this ability to regurgitate only because the others are there. Once they are gone, as we're witnessing, don't you think, at least to some extent, that the need for credible reporting resources will increase since the sources of these "one and two man" operations will no longer have their crutches? Further, don't you think that revenue capability of the other sources will rise, giving other entities the ability to pay more credible and professional sources to help them fill this void between where they were before and where they are going? I suspect with the death or diminishing of each paper, online news resources as well as others are now more of a focal point for those that want to advertise amongst the "news." supply and demand, I'm thinking ad revenues will rise to an extent. Will it be all that was the newspaper business? Probably not, it's still easier and cheaper to get the news out fast in todays interwebz age, not to mention, again, competition being so rampant, but I still think there is room for these people to move to the new medium, and other mediums as economics shift towards a new direction. Probably it will take time. I'm in agreement with you for the most part, and again, this doesn't diminish the gravity of layoffs, but I guess I don't see the glass quite as empty as you and samf in regards to news losing its quality completely and permanently, or in regard to all viable journalist professionals no longer being needed/employed. this is true, it will never be the same, but as someone stated before, WSJ.com is flourishing, and I bet they get good revenue for ad space. Very good point about the golden age for the news consumer though, quite the window we're watching get closed. I suspect that with each viable news source shutting down, the one and two man operations are floundering a bit as their only sources are disappearing due to their own cannibalism. You have to think that some contraction in the amount of news dissemination will occur, and a void will be created which can only be filled, to some extent, by the very people who have provided credible and valuable information/news through their own hard work. Again, to some extent only... Very true...
I'll start off by saying that I am sad that so many people are losing their jobs and that the Chronicle is forced to lessen itself to survive. Maybe it will have to become a weekly in the future. That said, I don't think the newspaper industry's dire straits mean that the news itself is going out the door. In my opinion, we're going to see a rise in the multimedia news conglomerate take over in a big way. The BBC, CNN/CNN.com and Fox News/Foxnews.com being prime examples. Print media is absolutely dying - newspapers are day old recaps, where news channels and web sites are on the stories within the first couple of hours. Nationalization and globalization have made local stories a niche market. But the big national news providers can/do have local affiliates. There is a place for serious journalists to go. The world will go on. The advertising dollars will follow. Evan
apparently wasn't there long enough. she's got three kids - one special needs - with a husband in school working a part-time job at a hospital. plus she said they base unemployment on last few quarters or something, and she was off for 3 months with maternity so she's hit even harder.
Man, this economy is just hitting everyone hard. My friend up in The Woodlands, who I have known since I was 7 years old (we both ended up out here from the same little town in California) is going through the worst time. She's trying to go to Cosmetology school up there, while living off a part time bartending gig and it isn't going well. She had another job at a Main Event where she was head of the bartending staff for 2 years, and was fired on a technicality that nobody else had even been written up for. She goes to school 8 hours a day 5 days a week, and has minimal time to even look for another job, she is in serious debt and her bank account is 200 dollars overdrawn, and she was over at my place last week and found out through a ****ing text message from her landlord that she was getting kicked out for not paying bills. What can you even do when something like that happens? I mean I just sat there while she had a breakdown and it was the worst feeling in the world not knowing what I could do to help.
