Posted on 05/23/2008 5:08:08 AM PDT by abb
More than 100 Washington Post reporters, editors, photographers, artists and other journalists will take early retirement packages offered by the company as a way to cut costs, reducing the newsroom staff by at least 10 percent.
A number of familiar bylines will leave for good or no longer appear regularly in the paper, including those of military affairs reporter Thomas E. Ricks; feature writers Linton Weeks and Peter Carlson; health reporter Laura Sessions Stepp; science reporter Rick Weiss; the husband-and-wife foreign correspondent team of John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore; critics Stephen Hunter, Desson Thomson and Tim Page; Federal Diary columnist Stephen Barr; Weekend writers Richard Harrington and Eve Zibart; and Metro reporters Sue Anne Pressley Montes and Yolanda Woodlee.
Political dean David Broder took the package but will remain on contract; his column will continue to appear in The Post. Sports columnist and ESPN personality Tony Kornheiser also took the offer, but his most recent full-length column in The Post appeared in 2005. Since then, his presence has been largely limited to printed excerpts from his daily Talking Points video, which is planned to continue.
The list includes a number of Pulitzer Prize winners, including Ricks, Broder and Hunter.
"I realized about a year ago I no longer had to be the film critic," said Hunter, a successful novelist who has a book coming out in September and commutes from Baltimore. "Part of it was New York Avenue fatigue, part of it was movie fatigue, part of it was CGI fatigue," he said, referring to digitally rendered movie special effects. "I'm doing what The Post would not do: I'm firing myself for being too old."
snip
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
ping
Please Please Please say Richard Cohen, Tom Shales and Al Kamen took the package.
BTW, great cartoon.
LOL! Funny cartoon. Good news!
Shouldn’t those Liberal Dead Tree rags close down anyway for Mother Earth?? How many precious trees could be saved??
Pray for W and Our Troops
http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Newsprint-Consumption.aspx
Newsprint Consumption
U.S. Daily Newsprint Consumption and Inventories for April
In April 2008, preliminary estimates indicate that U.S. daily newspapers used 483,000 metric tons of newsprint, 13.7 percent less than the 560,000 tons used in April 2007. March usage was revised to 464,000 tons and -15.0 percent change. There were four Sundays in April 2008 and five in April 2007.
Newsprint inventories averaged 43 days supply at the end of April compared with 39 days a year earlier. Stocks were down 6.9 percent.
Estimates are derived from a stratified random sample of newspapers. This sample includes 208 daily newspapers, representing more than 50 percent of the daily circulation in the U.S. Data is collected from each newspaper every month.
Stephen Hunter, author of the Bob Lee Swagger / Earl Swagger series of novels (Time to Hunt, Black Light, Pale Horse Coming et al) was the one real reason to get the Post on Fridays. And from reading his books I'd say he was a closeted conservative.
Unfortunately I do not see EJ Dionne and Dana Milbank and Courtland Milloy among those listed who took the buyout....
Their time is coming. I say within 12-18 months.
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzmeet0523,0,1618612.story
Cablevision: Newsday buy is a “wonderful fit”
By Mark Harrington
10:46 PM EDT, May 22, 2008
As it awaits a regulatory review of the pending purchase of Newsday, Cablevision Systems Corp. yesterday called the deal a “wonderful fit” to mostly supportive shareholders but lost patience with one who begged to differ.
Officials at the cable giant’s annual shareholders meeting in Bethpage acknowledged they had much to learn about newspapers but noted they’ve succeeded in other businesses they once knew little about.
“We’re very aware of our inexperience with newspapers,” chairman Charles Dolan said. “We plan to consult widely and seek advice from people who have backgrounds and are professionals in the field.”
snip
please let them all go but Tom Boswell!
Oh yeah, ask the “professionals in the field” for help.
You’ve bought your anchor. Be proud of it, because no one can help you, now.
We have strangely been getting the full week. I called to ask why and they simply said that “sometimes we run specials” and not to worry as I wasn't being billed for Monday through Wednesday.
We figure that is very likely done to raise their weekly circulation numbers.
We had to wait four weeks before the darn subscription started up. Then, they forgot to send the $10 Meijer gift card that was to come with it, so we called on that, too.
Local news and local advertising inserts on Sunday is something people would pay to read. Liberal opinions or slanted news is not worth buying.
We find that the main stories in the paper are relating to a liberal program that is, sadly, underfunded, local homeless people trying to make good, but being held back by businesses or government help, or criminals/illegals being unfairly discriminated against and about what this says about our local residents.
It doesn't help that we have a “journalism” school here which gives liberal students a chance to earn their wings writing tripe.
90% of print, TV and other old media is liberal.
New media (online) is much more conservative.
I won’t miss them much when they go.
Please let it be Howie Kurtz and Richard Shales PLEASE
These are the only companies I know of who have managed to consistently reduce paper usage!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.