Tribune Withers Further to Cut Expenses
The leading paragraph says it all …
The News Tribune today offered 189 of its 350 full-time staffers voluntary buyout deals and imposed work-week reductions on all hourly workers in a bid to bring the Tacoma newspaper’s expenses in line with its reduced advertising income.
Ouch. I don’t know what to say.
Link to The News Tribune
Previously on Exit133
Filed under: General
5 comments
K Kevindot1 September 9, 2008
Well this must explain the lack up updates to the GritCity blog.
E Erik S September 9, 2008
I’m really sorry to see that. I hope that the TNT can stay afloat. With all due respect to the E133 gang, blogs cannot replace (or at least have not yet found a way to replace)the investigative journalism that papers do (when they are at their best). As a friend said to me just now, this isn’t just bad for reporters and news junkies, it’s also bad for our democracy. How are people going to find out what’s happening?
D Derek staff September 9, 2008
With all due respect to the E133 gang …
Nobody at Exit133 has ever claimed that we’d replace newspapers. We don’t aspire to that particular depth and breadth. We like newsprint. We do what we do.
The decline of papers should not mean the decline of investigative journalism, however. The medium of putting words in front of somebody shouldn’t matter. Blog format is simply a format. Broadsheet. Digital. Slick and glossy magazines. Whatever. In the past, newspapers have been the organization with the means and interest to fund journalists. There will always be a place for investigative journalism. The difference in the future is that the words, in the end, may end up someplace other than in newsprint.
Y You're Welcome September 10, 2008
Is this why the Tacoma News Tribune is packed full of stories about Puyallup, Federal Way, and Gig Harbor? Don’t those cities have their own newspapers?
M Mofo from the Hood September 10, 2008
There may be a correlation between reduced advertising revenue and employee layoffs; but the correlation doesn’t mean cause and effect.
If the demand for newspapers is based strongly on advertising then Little Nickel Want Ads should be laying off a significant number of employees.
I tend to believe that most people buy newspapers as a means to reliable information about daily world events; local, national, and international news.
Other mediums such as radio, television, and the internet have one great advantage—-they can provide immediate coverage of a current event. But the coverage is usually superficial.
An old adage from the newspaper business goes like this: There are two sides to every story. Did you get both sides? The print medium, if established with bright writers and staff and if recognized as a reliable source, can offer the depth and breadth that Derek noted, and that many readers want—-A newspaper needn’t have the story and time limitations of electronic media. Newspapers may lack speed delivering stories to the consumer, but they can surely match and even surpass the electronic media with well researched and well-told stories.
All in all, the Tribune is a business and so beyond creative writing, balancing income and expenses is a major everyday concern.
I don’t doubt that the Tribune needs to cut expenses. One thing that I do know, and anyone could easily confirm this, the corporate campus is extravagant. Just for the fun of it, go downtown to the corner of South 7th between St. Helens and Opera Alley and check out their old shop.