22 employees
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's newsroom could shrink to 22 from 170 if the paper goes web-only, under a plan Hearst Corp. reportedly is now weighing; it could stop print publication as soon as Tuesday.The surviving news staffers include nearly all the paper's online producers, the P-I reported yesterday: "It includes no copy editors, editorial writers, designers or sports or features writers. Most of them are younger than 40."
Like the P-I, Arizona's Tucson Citizen is facing a shutdown deadline. But there have been no signs Gannett wants to preserve the Citizen's editorial voice through a web-only version:
- U.S. Justice Department probes Citizen bid rules
- GCI warns paper will close March 21, without new owner
- Bob Dickey consoles Citizen staff -- then hits the links
If you build it, will they come?
ReplyDeleteThat's the big question.
I wouldn't trust Ken Doctor's opinion on the weather. Here's a guy who was with a company (Knight Ridder Digital) who had all their content supplied for free yet still couldn't make a profit on the web.
ReplyDeleteNo copy editors? Great. Not a day goes by that I do not see errors on the three national newspapers' Web sites, as well as washingtonpost.com. We certainly don't need to do anything that compounds the problem.
ReplyDeleteHey 1:26 "no copy editor?"
ReplyDeleteIt will be like in Blade Runner where everyone spoke a mesh of 8 languages. Stories will be written in a jumbling of facebook, twitter, myspace acronyms based in English with a dash of manduran. Ones ability to spell or write a complete sentence will be irrellivant.
Well, not really.
Stories will be written in a jumbling of facebook, twitter, myspace acronyms based in English with a dash of MANDARIN.
ReplyDeleteONE'S ability to spell or write a complete sentence will be IRRELEVANT.
A web only metro can't support that many people. 3 or 4 maybe, but not more than 20.
ReplyDelete8:14 p.m.: You're almost certainly correct.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm gobsmacked to think there's anyone who believes a staff of less than 25 - even if they were ALL reporters - can adequately cover news in a city the size of Seattle.
It's going to be a high-class(?) blog. Not that that's bad. But it's not a comprehensive newsgathering organization, for sure.
This is exactly what would turn Gannett around. If all of Gannett's papers under 200,000 circ went to this format then things would suddenly start to look good to Wallstreet. And yes, to see the full story you would need to buy an online subscription.
ReplyDeleteThis business model might work, but it would certainly be bad news for journalists and people who love news.
ReplyDeleteThese Web-only products would be able to report on little more than their competitors at the television stations, so there would be less news to be had.
We may have reached the point where the general public doesn't care about that. And, if that's the case, it might as well happen sooner rather than later. At least that way we can all move on to new careers.
Mainstream papers may have online only presence, what you might call the Remnant Unpaper Model. But will people trust the RUM? Or would they be more receptive to newcomers? New models must be invented that make room for at least some real journalists. One could do a lot of aggregating of blogs, or "blogregating," but you still need some core pros to do that and to do some old-fashioned legwork and put it out there whether it's a paper or online. You also need revenues.
ReplyDelete