Posted on 03/09/2010 7:05:40 AM PST by abb
Tribune Co.'s Virginia newspaper plans to outsource the editing and designing of much of its content to the newsroom of its corporate flagship, the Chicago Tribune, in a bid to reduce costs and focus resources on local coverage.
Staff at both the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., and the Chicago Tribune were told Monday.
Since last spring, the Chicago Tribune has been sending edited, formatted and headlined nonlocal stories to smaller Tribune Co. newspapers, which could then drop them onto their pages. This new plan, set to begin Tuesday, involves editing, formatting and producing whole pages for the Daily Press, including, in some cases, editing and inserting local content. The Daily Press' front section will be locally focused.
"Instead of sending out individual building blocks that are assembled at the local site, we're essentially going to build the framework into which they will fit local modules," said Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern, who has led the centralization efforts. The Daily Press, Kern said, asked for the latest "iteration on this model" to maintain local reporting yet lower costs.
"This is a model that, particularly in smaller markets, although I can see it in larger markets as well, can change the economics of the newspaper business the same way Clear Channel changed the economics of … the radio business," Digby Solomon, president and chief executive of the Daily Press, said by phone. "It's the same idea of how do you leverage costs to have good quality content at an affordable price so everybody can have it."
Tribune Co. Chief Executive Randy Michaels and many others who joined the company in leadership positions since Sam Zell took the Chicago-based media concern private in December 2007 worked at Clear Channel Communications.
snip
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
ping
Lucky you now you can read Clarence Page moan on and on about America’s “racism”, but without ever figuring out what he means since he never defines “racism” or provides any proof. Me thinks the North Shore libs from their safe confines have Clarence on as a token.
In the really old days of the old west, a newspaper man could buy cheap newsprint that already had half the pages printed with ads and stuff.
Interesting that this sounds vaguely similar.
And the consolidation of the mainstream media continues....
And deck-chair rearrangement.
http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/dumb_like_a_fox.php?page=all
Dumb Like a Fox
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/business/media/08carr.html?ref=media
Breaking the Story That Isn’t
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/09/newspapers-advertising-publicis-maurice-levy
Newspapers over-dependent on advertising, says Publicis boss
Newspapers over-dependent on advertising, says Publicis boss
MGM sets deadline for updated bids
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=acXuIb528IFo
Disney May Pull ABC From Bigger Cable Rivals Next
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=123861&nid=111979
Tipping Point: Digital Ad Revs To Top Print in 2010
Well, we've had to deal with Leonard Pitts, another race-monger who moans with the best of them. I'd received the Daily Press here in VA for 14 years, before cutting back last month to just weekends. I don't miss the weekday papers a bit.
http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/
Publisher profits dive 1.7x faster than sales
He is horrible as well. Trib used to run a column by a black muslim, and I liked it because he was honest at least, but he fell afoul of the Trib because he was Pro-pali and so now we have the official black man Clarence taking up space.
Hey, Scottie - we must be neighbors! We got rid of the Daily De-Pressed on 5 Nov 2008 - after they pushed like nothin’ for the Bamster. Haven’t missed it, constantly get hit up by them for re-up and love telling them to pack sand...God smiled on us right after the cancellation by getting the WSJ delivered to us, not mailed...life is GOOD in the woods of VA!
Intriguing. Television stations have recently been doing something similar with their technical operations.
A group of stations, usually under common ownership, consolidates common services in an operations “hub,” serving stations within a radius of perhaps a thousand miles.
These include network feeds, traffic (i.e., commercial ad managment) departments, commercial & promo inserts, graphic arts, company-wide promos,and so forth. The hub sends the digital program stream over a leased (typically fiber) link out to each individual station. There are also backfeeds so that the hub can collect locally-generated news actualities and commercials, and monitor the transmitted signal.
Even the stations’ transmitters are under central control, with emergency dispatch teams when a main unit goes down.
The stations still have local news bureaus, anchors, skeleton production crews, and commercial sales.
A business model is developing wherein a third party provides the aforementioned central services to any station who wishes to subscribe to them.
All this is made possible by the revolution in low-cost, high-data rate communications.
Even TV stations in a market that are not under common ownership have started sharing news gathering operations for video footage.
Good point. And I noticed (after finally having read the article!) that they mention Clear Channel, who was a leader in the hubbing concept for radio stations.
I have a friend who is highly experienced in the technical end of TV who’d like to set up an outsourced central TV transmitter operation and maintenance company.
Good.
What a great way to kill a smaller newspaper.
Just run liberal lies/bs posing as news or opeds that have nothing to do with local happenings.
Interstate transporting of heavy newspapers every day doesn't sound very eco-responsible.
Haven't these newspapers been paying attention to Al Gore or is this yet another case of we have to do with less, but liberals are too important and thus exempt from the rules that we must follow?
Actually, they “produce” the pages on a computer in Chicago. Editing, page layout and so forth is done remotely. Once that is done the completed page is emailed to the pressroom in Virginia.
The Gannett rags here in Louisiana are done this way. The Shreveport, Lafayette, Alexandria and Monroe papers are all laid out and edited in Monroe and then emailed back to each location to be printed there.
Thank You, I missed that.
Whatever, as long as it means more hacks like Kate Zernike are on the unemployment line and out of the news business.
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