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In a cost-cutting move, the parent company of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com said it will reduce the number of newsroom positions by 37 — through buyouts, it hopes — by the end of March. On Wednesday afternoon, management of Philadelphia Media Network Inc. (PMN) informed Newspaper Guild Local 10, which represents editorial, advertising and circulation employees, that it needed to cut costs because of challenging industry conditions. The move was not unexpected since PMN had announced plans last fall to create one newsroom for all its media properties as part of the relocation of its offices...

This morning, news of a new buyout offer began circulating in The Washington Post newsroom. This is the paper’s fifth round of buyouts since 2004. Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton tweeted this afternoon that the buyouts would be capped at 48 people or 8 percent of the 600-person newsroom. The Washington Post Company, which owns the Post, Slate, a community newspaper group, and an educational unit, had a dismal third quarter. Its report from that time period was filed last November (PDF). It said that newspaper revenue was down 9 percent from the same period the year before, advertising revenue shrank...

The New York Times Company reported its Q4 earnings today, and they lost $39.7 million in 2011, or 27 cents a share, after making $107.7 million in 2010. Q4 profit is down 12.2% y/y thanks to the continuing decline of print advertising and a 67.4% decline in the About Group's operating profit, which also saw a 25.7% decrease in quarterly ad revenues y/y. The NYT also missed analysts' estimates — quarterly net income of 39 cents a share was lower than expectations of 42 cents a share. The fourth quarter income also reflects a $4.5 million payout to departed CEO...

Gannett Co. reported a 33% drop in fourth-quarter profit as persistent advertising declines at its newspapers and lower television revenues more than offset growth in the digital businesses. The McLean, Va., publisher of more than 80 daily U.S. papers, including USA Today, said ad revenue in its newspaper segment decrease 7.1% from the year-earlier quarter. Coming after an 8.5% year-over-year drop in the third quarter, the results capped a difficult second half of a year when many publishers expected advertising deterioration to level off. Executives said advertising got a boost in November from Black Friday and Cyber Monday but the...

The New York Times Company is still seeking a replacement for CEO Janet Robinson who departed last month, and Wall Street isn’t too happy, reports Bloomberg. A new leader is needed to bring up revenue, shore up profits and restore the Times Company’s dividend, Bloomberg writes. The company, which announces fourth-quarter results next week, is projected to report that its 2011 revenue was $2.33 billion, a decline from 2010 and the sixth straight year of declining sales. “The stock is kind of stuck in no-man’s land,” and the absence of a CEO is part of what’s keeping it there,” one...

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES Editorial: Why we will no longer endorse in elections Updated: January 23, 2012 Seventy-one years ago, Mar­shall Field III founded this newspaper to create a bully pulpit, on the editorial page, for America’s entry into the war in Europe and for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s domestic agenda, the New Deal. Somebody in the Midwest, Field believed, had to stand up and counter the isolationist and anti-Roosevelt fulminations of Col. Robert McCormick and his Chicago Tribune. It was an era, even then drawing to a close, when many American newspapers were unabashedly partisan, and not necessarily only on the...

The Post managed to tee off its readers twice this week.. It raised its single-copy price at the newsstand to $1, from 75 cents, and the company did so with no announcement, no publisher’s note, nothing online or in print that I could find. That angered readers. Remember that the No. 1 revenue stream for The Post still is print circulation — that is, the money received from home subscribers, newsstand sales and print advertising. Here’s what one phone caller left on my voice mail: “This [price increase], so far as I can tell, was unannounced. . . . I looked at...

Online advertising spending will cruise past print in the United States this year for the first time, according to a new forecast by eMarketer. Online ad spending in the U.S. grew 23% to $32.03 billion in 2011 and will grow 23.3% more to $39.5 billion in 2012, eMarketer said. That will put it above total U.S. magazine and newspaper spending, which will fall 6.1% to $36 billion this year, said the report. Print ad spending in magazines will actually tick up to $15.4 billion from $15.3 billion, according to eMarketer. Magazine and newspaper publishers themselves enjoy rising digital ad revenue,...

Looking to reduce costs as it continues to grapple with a changing media landscape and challenging economy, the Chicago Tribune told employees Monday it will offer an undisclosed number of voluntary buyouts in the newsroom. Gerry Kern, senior vice president and editor of the Tribune, issued a memo outlining the voluntary separation program, which will be open to all editorial staff except top departmental management. "We begin the year with a need to reduce costs as we face the continued financial pressures from a weak economy and structural changes in our industry," Kern said. "We are committed to taking action...

“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.” — Mark Twain “The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.” ― Patrick Henry

Labor unrest is simmering just below the surface at the New York Times Co., and the unions appear to be gearing up for a protracted fight. Sources say that the Communications Workers of America, the parent union of the Newspaper Guild and others, has earmarked a $350,000 war chest and hired the politically connected public relations firm of BerlinRosen to advise in what seems to be shaping up as a pivotal battle among several unions. The Newspaper Guild, which claims to represent about 1,000 journalists and photographers at the flagship, and the smaller Mailers Union Local 6, with about 170...

The New York Times Company said on Monday it was in advanced talks to sell 16 regional newspapers, another indication the company was divesting itself of assets to concentrate on its core newspaper business. Halifax Media Holdings of Daytona Beach, Fla., is currently negotiating the purchase of the Times Company’s Regional Media Group, a division that includes newspapers across the country like The Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida; The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Calif.; The Star-News in Wilmington, N.C.; The Gainesville Sun, also in Florida; and The Tuscaloosa News in Alabama. Combined, the papers have a Monday-through-Friday circulation of 433,251...

Here's betting that the corporate brass at Lee Enterprises up in Davenport has no idea that today is the anniversary of the founding of the Post-Dispatch. If it did, you'd think it would choose any day but today to officially file for bankruptcy. But even if the anniversary is lost on Lee Enterprises, the irony of its predicament cannot be. Lee wanted to be a big-boy media company back in 2005 when it swallowed up the larger Pulitzer Inc. (then owner of the Post-Dispatch). Now Lee is choking on all the money it borrowed to fund the acquisition and is...

Today’s opening snark courtesy of Journolister Dave Weigel from his Slate perch: Big Government breaks the news that Bill Ayers hosted a fundraiser for Barack Obama; well, this was broken by Ben Smith in 2007, but still. I call it a “snark” because the word “lie” feels a little harsh during this holiday season. However, it’s just a fact that Big Government didn’t position the piece as “breaking news” and as far as I can tell it wasn’t even a featured story. But you have to admire a guy like Weigel who poses as an objective journalist and yet sees...

Press watchdog Reporters Without Borders urged media organisations on Friday to take care to protect female reporters from sexual assault while covering unrest in Egypt, following several serious attacks. The group initially warned women journalists not to work in Cairo's Tahrir Square...It is more dangerous for a woman than a man to cover the demonstrations in Tahrir Square. That is the reality and the media must face it ... On Thursday, French television reporter Caroline Sinz from the state network France 3 was subjected to a violent sexual assualt by a gang of young men and boys and her cameraman...

Layoffs have come to the Daily News. Since this morning, staffers to be laid off have been getting called into a conference room to meet with senior vice president of human-resources Jeff Zomper. They're being told the layoffs are part of a "downsizing" operation at the paper. The layoffs aren't yet complete, (The New York Observer and the New York Post are putting the total number at 10); we've confirmed the names of a few of those who've been laid off so far. Bob Kappstatter, a 43-year veteran of the paper who just turned 68, was one of them. "It's...

According to a couple of independent newsroom sources, Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton called meetings on Wednesday to inform affected people that the design, news operations and web operations staffs would be combined into one department, along with at least some of the copy editors. The merging would take place by the end of January and lead to 10-20 layoffs, the sources say. One of the sources said there's also new talk of combining sections to save money.

S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) component Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE:GCI) reported its results for the third quarter. Gannett is an international news and information company operating mainly in the realms of publishing, digital and broadcasting. Results: Net income for the publisher fell to $99.8 million (41 cents per share) vs. $101.4 million (42 cents per share) a year earlier. This is a decline of 1.6% from the year earlier quarter. Revenue: Fell 3.5% to $1.27 billion from the year earlier quarter. Actual vs. Wall St. Expectations: GCI reported adjusted net income of 44 cents per share. By that measure, the company fell...

As part of a restructuring plan, the Statesman Co. on Tuesday laid off 53 employees, company officials said. The Statesman Co., a subsidiary of Cox Media Group, publishes the Austin American-Statesman and several smaller Central Texas newspapers, including the Bastrop Advertiser, the Westlake Picayune, the Round Rock Leader and the Pflugerville Pflag.

The Palm Beach Post, privately held by an Atlanta family with three members on the Forbes 400 richest Americans, is laying off “more than 20″ employees today, according to a memo exclusively obtained by Gossip Extra. The Palm Beach Post In an email sent an hour ago to the entire company in West Palm Beach, Publisher Tim Burke made it clear more layoffs could come soon as the newspaper’s umbrella company, Cox Newspapers, continues to contract during the economic downturn. Today’s unexpected cuts from a staff that’s already stretched thin include four newsroom workers, including two who work mainly for...

Real-estate and newspaper mogul Mortimer Zuckerman voted for Obama but began seeing trouble as soon as the stimulus went into the pockets of municipal unions. 'It's as if he doesn't like people," says real-estate mogul and New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman ... The Boston Properties CEO is trying to understand why Mr. Obama has made little effort to build relationships on Capitol Hill or negotiate a bipartisan economic plan. A longtime supporter of the Democratic Party, Mr. Zuckerman wrote in these pages two months ago that the entire business community was "pleading for some kind of adult supervision"...

Left-wing financier George Soros is at it again. While he may claim he’s not behind the Occupy Wall Street protests, funding from his foundations says otherwise. Soros threw his support behind the movement at a United Nations panel on Oct. 3, “I can sympathize with their grievances.” But he does more than just sympathize, his foundations funded groups that back the protests and steer their “progressive” message..... it is hard to ignore the concerted effort by liberal groups, unions, and other Soros-funded entities that prop-up and fuel the Occupy movement. An echo-chamber of left-wing blogs and news sites that receive...

In the midst of a deteriorating advertising climate, The New York Times plans to eliminate up to 20 newsroom positions and seek additional savings in the business units, the company said Thursday. The reductions, described by the New York Times Company as a rebalancing, were announced to employees on Thursday morning. The company will seek volunteers for buyouts in The Times newsroom, Jill Abramson, the paper’s executive editor, said in a memo to the staff, adding that no newsroom employee would be laid off. She said there would be “fewer than 20” buyouts. The Times will also seek to cut...

When he announced a recent 5 percent pay cut for staff and change in severance payments, St. Petersburg Times chairman and CEO Paul Tash said the cost-cutting “will likely include further job reductions,” and now it has. In a memo to staff, executive editor Neil Brown acknowledged that layoffs at the Poynter-owned paper had started. “The economy affords us no guarantees,” Brown wrote, “but we hope to wrap up these staffing decisions by the middle of October.” We’ve been told about eight people who were laid off, but have confirmed only three. The full memo follows. From Neil Brown to...

The paper's Jerusalem bureau paid barely minimal attention to the recent killing of an Israeli man and his one-year-old son by stone-throwing Palessinians who attacked their car -- with one huge stone smashing through the windshield and hitting the driver. ... Like most Western reporters, Kershner assumes that a logical peace treaty must divide Jerusalem, with Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem remaining in Israel and Arab neighborhoods becoming part of Palestine. But neither she nor her colleagues have ever checked with Arab residents of Jerusalem about what their real preference might be. Had they done so, they would have found...

Gannett shares are taking a hit today after chairman and CEO Craig Dubow resigned late yesterday. Gannett shares are taking a hit today after the print, broadcast and digital media company announced late yesterday chairman and CEO Craig Dubow has resigned due to disability. Dubow had taken a leave of absence beginning September 15 to address continuing issues related to a prior medical condition. President and chief operating officer Gracia Martore, who has been at the helm of the company since Dubow's medical leave, has been name president and CEO,

I understand that Rosh HaShana and the day after are considered Sabbaths. However, it's been several days that I have been unable to read Israeli newspapers on-line. I've tried J'lem Post, Haaretz and Arutz Sheva. I am unable to reach their websites. I'm trying to tell myself that maybe they are down because of Rosh HaShana which is being followed by a regular Sabbath. But, given the situation in the ME, I don't find that explanation very satisfactory. I don't have any problem accessing any other websites, just Israeli newspapers. Does anybody know what's going on? I had never followed...

As the current republican primary process unfolds, I find one parallel to be very interesting. The liberal media has smeared all candidates except one, Mitt Romney. They've gone out and manufactured fake out of context videos about "big black clouds", they've said things where blatantly false when they were blatantly true, and yet one candidate stands alone as unsmeared. He's not getting great press, don't misunderstand. But he's not the subject of the media war that we've come to all be familiar with. Why? The media absolutely love and adore Barack Obama, so it's not for lack of zeal. AND!...

Ed Padgett knows a thing or two about printing newspapers. For the last 39 years, he has been working as a pressman at the Los Angeles Times. In the near future, he could be out of a job. "[The management is] expecting a really bad fourth quarter. The senior vice president told us we’ve got three years more of printing the hard copy Times before they shut it down. Our plant manager says five years," he told The Frying Pan. A LAT spokeswoman said that there were no plans to cease publication of the print product, but you would not...

Pay for full-time employees at the St. Petersburg Times will be cut by five percent until January 2012 under a new cost-savings plan implemented by the newspaper starting Monday. Staffers will be given five additional days off, with pay, during the five-month period, distinguishing this move from compulsory furloughs used by some other media outlets. The change will save about $1-million over the next five months in payroll costs. The company also will reduce its maximum severance payment from 40 weeks to 26 weeks, starting Oct. 1. The newspaper’s cost-saving plan will also likely include further job reductions, though officials...

The Dallas Morning News laid off a reported 38 employees on Tuesday as the paper's parent company, A.H. Belo Corp., contends with a continued decline in advertising revenues at its newspapers. The layoffs ran the spectrum of jobs at the Morning News, including editors, reporters, photographers and designers. James M. Moroney III, executive vice president of A. H. Belo Corp. and publisher and CEO of the Morning News, said in an email that the company is battling a revenue problem that plagues the entire newspaper industry. In his email, Moroney did not confirm how many employees were let go. "No...

Newspaper companies are resetting their advertising expectations after a discouraging first half of the year, a shift that could spur a return to more of the job cuts and other belt-tightening moves that spread through the industry in 2008 and 2009. A spate of publishers in recent weeks reported that newspaper advertising revenue in the second quarter declined at rates in the mid- to high-single digits because of persistent weakness in print, and executives said they expect similar trends in the third quarter. "Right now, I'd have a hard time presenting a plan with revenues flattening out," one newspaper executive...

Cincinnati Enquirer parent Gannett Co. Inc. has signed a letter of intent under which the Columbus Dispatch will print a much smaller version of the newspaper. The move, if finalized, will result in the closure of the company's local printing operations by the fourth quarter of 2012. In a statement, the company said the new format would be 10 1/2 inches by 14 1/2 inches. The paper is now 11 inches by 22 1/2 inches. "We are committed to serving the greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky communities – and providing consumers with the best news and information anywhere, anytime. We...

A Times pressroom is being further downsized “in response to the decline in revenue and page counts.” Ten union pressroom employees will be laid off at the end of August. The LAT pressroom has been hit hard by layoffs in the past. Last year the paper closed their Orange County printing facility as a cost-cutting measure. There are currently about 127 pressroom employees at the one remaining printing facility The full email from management is included after the jump. The email below was found at the union blog Save Our Trade. Ronnie Pineda GCC-IBT Local #140N As we have previously...

Management at The Baltimore Sun gave a buyout proposal to the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild Wednesday, looking to cut from 20 to 25 positions. “The company has initiated bargaining today with the guild over the terms of a voluntary buyout offer,” Renee Mutchnik, director of marketing for The Baltimore Sun, said in a statement. Mutchnik wrote in an emailed response to questions that this is the first voluntary buyout offer since 2008. The Newspaper Guild will be meeting with management Thursday afternoon to discuss the proposal, said Andrea K. Walker, a business reporter and newsroom chair for The Sun’s guild unit....

The Washington Post has reported a 50% plunge in profits for the second quarter of 2011, as advertising revenue at its print and online businesses suffered double-digit declines. The Washington Post Company, which is quoted on the New York Stock Exchange, also reported that its education unit, Kaplan, had a tough quarter, with operating income plunging 82% to $20.5m and revenues falling 15% to $628.7m. Overall profits at the Washington Post Company for the three months to the end of June were $45.6m, a 50% decline on the $91.9m the company reported in the same period last year.

New York Times Co. swung to a second-quarter loss on a write-down tied to its news media group, along with the continuing decline of advertising revenue and higher promotion costs related to the launch of digital subscription packages. New York Times, which also owns the Boston Globe, has signaled that its cost-cutting efforts, which have allowed it to remain mostly profitable despite its top-line declines, may be winding down. Most publishers have seen slower advertising-revenue declines, but the newspaper industry continues to battle circulation losses as readers migrate to the Internet. ... Revenue dropped 2.2% to $576.7 million, reflecting a...

The Chicago Tribune Media Group announced Tuesday it has reached an agreement to print the Chicago Sun-Times and seven of parent Sun-Times Media’s suburban newspapers. Printing will be moved from the Sun-Times plant on Ashland Avenue to the Tribune's Freedom Center, with work phased in during the fall. The Tribune has distributed Sun-Times products since 2007. "They are our No. 1 client, they are our largest client," said Becky Brubaker, senior vice president of manufacturing and distribution for Chicago Tribune Media Group. "It was an opportunity for both of us to expand services." The Tribune did not disclose the terms...

Gannett Co.'s second-quarter earnings fell 22% as advertising and circulation revenue continued sliding, though the company posted strong digital sales. The media company saw its bottom line rise for most of last year, aided by cost cuts and revenue growth at its broadcast and digital operations. But the trend ended last quarter, as earnings fell on persistent declines in print advertising and circulation. Advertising revenue fell 7% while circulation revenue dropped 2%. The broadcasting segment saw a 0.2% revenue increase while the digital business posted a 13% gain. Overall, revenue declined 2.2% to $1.33 billion. Gannett reported a profit of...

The 2010 elections, which changed the balance of power in the House, were driven by popular opposition to government spending, debt and the threat of tax increases. Yet even with the federal debt limit already breached and only days left to prevent a national default, the media continue to ignore the public's wishes. The theme of network reports on the debt ceiling battle is that some agreement MUST be reached so that the limit can be increased, but many Americans disagree with raising the debt limit and are more concerned about government spending. But that has barely been mentioned in...

The parent company for the Hartford Courant has announced plans to eliminate jobs in an effort to cut costs. The newspaper cites an email from CT1 Media saying that some of the positions being eliminated include those in the newsroom as well as production and administration departments. The paper reported late Thursday that it was not immediately clear how many positions will be cut and when that will happen.

Through most of 2010, newspaper companies talked of “sequential improvement” in their revenues. That was a euphemism for advertising losses, which continued but were getting gradually less severe. Then in the first months of 2011, the losses began accelerating again. Advertising, down 4.7 percent year-to-year in the fourth quarter of 2010, fell 7 percent in the first quarter of 2011, according to the Newspaper Association of America. Results for the second quarter are still being computed, but they are bad enough to prompt mass layoffs at Gannett two weeks ago and a move last week that consolidated editing of all...

The Guardian will make job cuts over the next two years in a bid to save £25m by 2016 and continue its move towards a ‘digital first’ news strategy. The newspaper’s editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger has said that a ‘significant’ number of jobs will be shed across the group which currently employs around 1,500 members of staff, including 630 journalists. Talking to BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show, Rusbridger admitted to cut its staff numbers over the next two years while the company also aims to boost its digital revenue to £91m by 2016. Andrew Miller, chief executive for the Guardian...

The 700 layoffs Gannett announced at its community newspapers Tuesday can rightly be read as a vote of no confidence in the future of print by America’s largest newspaper company. Given the company’s long history of playing to Wall Street, it is no big surprise, though. Gannett probably would say it is just being realistic in recognizing that these 81 newspapers have permanently become much smaller businesses. The market liked the hard-headed cost control move, with Gannett shares up about 4 percent from late Monday to Tuesday’s closing bell. Here is my take on the factors that went into the...

How do you know when a sector of the economy is in a "bubble"? Well, one of the signs is when everyone starts talking about it being a bubble. With higher education, everyone knows that some kind of correction is coming, they just don't know how big or how soon. College tuition has been increasing at an unsustainable rate, going up roughly 10% per year for the last ten years, far outstripping inflation. College debt is also unsustainable. Student loans are already bigger than credit card debt and are expected to exceed $1 trillion this year. One of the great...

Louisiana's Monroe News-Star said today that it would move its printing to The Times at Shreveport, effective Aug. 1. The switch will eliminate 12 full-time and 15 part-time jobs, the newspaper says in a story. The two cites are about 100 miles apart. "New positions will be added in Shreveport with the consolidation," the story says, "and Monroe employees will be given first option for those positions." The Times installed a Berliner press last year that produces a newspaper with an 18-inch depth. In addition, the Berliner press allows advertisers to place color advertising on every page, "which is important...

James Taranto has a hilarious column on the harrowing situation in which the press finds itself as it scrambles to keep up with Sarah Palin. It seems the governor — who somehow lacks a sense of gratitude to the mainstream press — won’t tell the television networks where her next stop is. So the reporters are forced to race behind the Palin bus in an effort to avoid losing sight of her. Mr. Taranto quotes a piece in which a producer of CBS News, Ryan Corsaro, says: “I just hope to God that one of these young producers with a...

Meet the Press" host David Gregory said Friday there are "prominent views within Israel" that support President Obama's controversial Mideast peace ideas expressed the day before. When asked by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, "What major Israeli public figures have come out supporting the President's speech," Gregory couldn't name one (video follows with transcript and commentary): ... Unfortunately for the "Meet the Press" host, Scarborough exposed the charade with a simple question. Readers are reminded that Gregory has been celebrated by his comrades in the media all week for his gotcha interview with Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich last Sunday. Unlike those...

The Charlotte Observer will lay off 26 employees in an effort to battle continued revenue declines, publisher Ann Caulkins announced today. Company officials were notifying those workers, including four in the newsroom, this morning. In some departments, employees were given the option to volunteer for a buyout. More than half of the cuts will come from operations; Caulkins said the Observer is transferring its pre-run printing to a sister paper in Columbia, S.C. The company is also freezing 25 vacant positions, she said. Caulkins said the paper continues to experience year-over-year revenue declines. Local advertising has improved, but national accounts...

Circulation fell at most of the largest U.S. newspapers compared with a year ago, despite new rules that give publishers more flexibility to boost their totals. The figures released Tuesday, for the six months ended in March, mark the first time that newspapers have calculated circulation under the looser guidelines from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Among other things, the changes make it easier for newspapers to lump separate editions under different titles into one total. They also allow some copies that are distributed free of charge to be tallied. Newspaper circulation has been falling as readers shift from the...