Washington Post Cuts 80 Jobs
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Blogging, MediaYep, they’re hurting…
NEW YORK, March 10 (Reuters) - The Washington Post Co. (WPO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) plans to cut 80 positions from the Washington Post’s editorial staff as it grapples with a steady decline in circulation, a union representative said on Friday.The cuts, which are expected to occur within a year, would come through buyouts and attrition, said Rick Weiss, co-chairman of the Washington Post unit of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. He also is science reporter on the Post’s national desk
Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. briefed newsroom staffers in a series of meetings this morning, Weiss said.
“The basic news was they’re looking to see how to tighten the budget in light of ongoing declines in circulation, which were described as about 4 percent a year… and what were described as flat revenues and increasing newsprint costs,” said Weiss, who attended one of the meetings.
I suppose the lesson here is adapt or die. Or is that too presumptive?
My opinion is that it isn’t enough to simply link to us bloggers. You have to integrate our posts into your print editions in some meaningful way. Sound absurd? Well, maybe now, and I think your readers wlll know you’re doing the very best you can to be objective, but if you include our opinons alongside your reporting, it will be that much more credible.
Honestly, does anybody think it’ll hurt or help the integrity of the fourth estate.
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 12th, 2006 and is filed under Blogging, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 13th, 2006 at 1:59 am
I’m not sure I get it. You want the newspaper to publish blog posts? Or links to them? In its news stories? But most political/national/world affairs blog posts are reactions to what’s been in the news. So how does that work? Where does the credibility come in?
March 13th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Honestly, it seemed interesting at the time, but probably wouldn’t work.
Basically, in the print edition, you’d collect a bunch of posts from around the blogosphere and print them up, just as you would any other commentary you’d get from the “man on the street” And you’d have the same with the online editions. They already point to posts that link to their article, but it seems like something else is needed.
March 13th, 2006 at 11:58 am
More often than not, blog info could only be used in the Op-Ed section,
since they are mostly opinion pieces. You could never publish something from a blog as “news”, unless of course, what’s being said by the blogger is news.
March 14th, 2006 at 8:34 am
To All,
Actually, the Philadelphia Inquirer DOES print a selection of “Blog” postsand responses on the Op-ED page next to a news article. I think Justin Gardner hit a bullseye. I read the article, then the blogspeak and it is akin to an instant random sampling poll. The key to integration, I think, is the integrity of the bolg material that makes it to print. This could be a slippery spot in the road to selective political support.