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The city of Pittsburgh will become the largest U.S. city without a daily print newspaper following the Post-Gazette’s announcement that it is ceasing publication of its Tuesday and Saturday editions. The 232-year-old Post-Gazette announced in June that it planned to scale back print editions of its daily newspaper, while leaving the schedule of its digital version unchanged. “It’s the year 2018, and with the way people review and expect to review information and news, we think we’re doing the right thing,” said Block Communications Inc. vice president of legal and government affairs Keith Wilkowski in a statement. “We will be...

Providence Journal lays off 23 full-time employees PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Providence Journal Co. laid off 23 full-time workers Wednesday as part of a cost-cutting effort, including 16 members of the Providence Newspaper Guild and 7 non-union employees. The cutback represents 5 percent of The Journal's workforce. The reductions come about two months after 11 employees accepted a voluntary separation offer. "Given a persistent softness in advertising revenue and the resultant impact on our earnings, it is necessary that we reduce our cost structure," said Howard G. Sutton, publisher, president and chief executive officer, in a statement. "It is always...

In a sign of just how bad the advertising climate is once again turning for newspapers, the New York Times announced this morning that it is planning up to 20 buyouts, the first significant reduction in staff since the dark days of 2009. Brian Stelter reports: 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...

In early July, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation placed its two London-based “quality” dailies, the Times and Sunday Times, behind a paywall, charging £1 for 24 hours access, or £2 a week (after an introductory £1 for the first month.*) At the same time, News Corp also forbad the UK’s Audit Bureau of Circulations from reporting site traffic*, so that no meaningful measure of the paywall’s effect was available. That situation has now been partially reversed, with News reporting some of its own numbers: they claim 105,000 total transactions for digital content between July and October.* (Several people have wrongly reported...

In January 2008, soon after the venerable Tribune Company was sold for $8.2 billion, Randy Michaels, a new top executive, ran into several other senior colleagues at the InterContinental Hotel next to the Tribune Tower in Chicago. Mr. Michaels, a former radio executive and disc jockey, had been handpicked by Sam Zell, a billionaire who was the new controlling shareholder, to run much of the media company’s vast collection of properties, including The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, WGN America and The Chicago Cubs. After Mr. Michaels arrived, according to two people at the bar that night, he sat...

This morning, CNN ran with another of its ginned-up stories, this time, once again, slandering the military. The hostess breathlessly reported a "surge in soldier suicides" in the US Army because four (4) soldiers were suspected suicides at one of the Army's largest bases (Texas, I think). Not only was CNN clearly bashing the US military again, but the reporter then ended the piece with, 'We will continue to cover this story, and we will continue to demand the Army change.' Demand the Army change? This is, once again, an anti-military tirade thinly disguised as "news." CNN, you are trash.

As part of the deep cuts announced this week at ABC News, the network plans to close all of its physical bureaus around the country except Washington and halve the number of its domestic correspondents. ABC News President David Westin confirmed in an interview Friday that the network's ranks of bureau correspondents, which currently number several dozen, would be cut in half and be replaced with "digital" journalists who would be expected to shoot and edit their own stories.

There’s basically zero popular support for several already unlikely initiatives the FTC is looking into in order to support the “reinvention of journalism.” Rasmussen Reports polled 1,000 people on whether they would support proposals—like a tax on consumer electronics to help news organizations or a taxpayer-funded program to support young journalists through AmeriCorps—and the answer was a decisive no. A monthly tax on cell phone bills? 90 percent no! A tax on consumer electronic devices? 84 percent no! The young reporter program? 70 percent no! A White House commission to help save journalism jobs? 55 percent no! (Via MediaPost) Most...

For years, even many of us in the online realm had countered digital prophesies of “the death of print” with cautious reservation. But now - as newsprint costs rise, digital operations grow their importance to publishers and driving delivery trucks around the place begins to seem anachronistic - printing on paper may increasingly look like just another cost that, soon, could be removed from the balance sheet. The Financial Times is amongst those seriously preparing to switch off printing presses, parent group Pearson’s director of global content standards Madi Solomon told me during a panel at the E-Publishing Innovation Forum...

Heads Roll at Station That Failed to Air Video The Seattle news director whose station turned down the video of a police beating resigned, and an assignment manager has been fired, Seattle news organizations reported on Thursday. “I want to let you all know today is my last day here at Q13 FOX. As the leader of this newsroom, I feel that under the circumstances it’s best for me to step aside. I don’t want to allow the issues of the past week to be a distraction to the news staff,” News Director Steve Kraycik wrote in his resignation letter,...

The merged Honolulu Star-Advertiser debuts June 7, with nearly 400 people losing their jobs in the process, according to the publisher of the combined newspaper. The last day that both The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin will publish separately will be Sunday, June 6... The Star-Bulletin purchased The Advertiser from the Gannett Co. and Francis said he expects to hire about half of the Advertiser's 580 employees, meaning about 290 Advertiser workers will lose their jobs in the merger. The Advertiser, one of Gannett’s larger newspapers with a daily circulation of about 130,000, was founded in 1856 and purchased...

For most old-school journalists, the equation is simple. Public disdain for reporters — ranked slightly above used car salesmen in one public poll — combined with a need to stay independent from the government as watchdogs, equals a situation where we can't take money from the government to survive. But there are some other numbers to consider: 5,900 full-time newspaper journalism jobs disappeared last year, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, with one-third of newspaper newsroom jobs gone since 2001. Newspaper advertising revenue dropped 22 percent in 2009, according to the PEJ. The historic way of funding great...

CNN’s most popular hosts have lost nearly half their audience over the last year in precipitous falls that have affected the entire network. In February, the network came in last place among the cable news nets, trailing not only Fox News and MSNBC, but also behind HLN (formerly Headline News) and CNBC, reports The New York Times. The first quarter of 2010 was Larry King’s worst quarter ever, with his audience down 43%, to 771,000 viewers, for the quarter and down 52% for the month of March. In the same quarter in 2009, Larry King’s show had 1.34 million viewers....

The Los Angeles Times is closing its printing facility in Orange County to cut costs. In a memo to employees, Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein said the paper will generate "substantial savings" by consolidating its printing operations at one facility in downtown Los Angeles.

2009 by the numbers As of Dec. 31, 2009. Data will continue to be updated as I get new information. 584 Number of newspapers that laid off employees in 2009. Does not include corporate/non-newspaper specific layoffs (Associated Press, Dow Jones Co., Gannett Co. Inc., GateHouse Media News Service, Lee Enterprises, McClatchy Interactive, Media General Washington bureau and Sun Newspapers). 40.7 Average number of newspaper layoffs per day, including weekends and holidays. In 2008, 44 newspaper employees were laid off each day. 153 Number of “unknown” layoff posts. Assuming each entry results in 1 layoff, the 2009 layoff total would be...

Newspapers had a nice run from the 1970s to the 1990s. Unfortunately, as this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes clear -- by way of Marketwatch -- it's over. Newspaper employment has utterly collapsed in the last 15 years, with employment numbers now around where they were in the mid-1950s. The good news: It's a great opportunity. The next decade will give birth to new forms of reporting, more in tune with today's technology and news consumption habits.

Less than a year ago, during yet another public discussion about the future of traditional media, I said that it seemed extremely unlikely that, for instance, Newsweek would last another five years, provoking guffaws among blogger types and stout denials from the magazine (i.e. a minor kerfuffle). Newsweek and its parent, the Washington Post Co., announced yesterday a significant cut in its rate base, a further round of buyouts and layoffs, and a plan to make an already anorexic magazine even thinner. The Washington Post Co., for good measure, added its own bad news and bleak outlook. My prediction about...

Concerned that “casual” and “irregular” so-called journalists are “confusing” the American people. Senators Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have introduced legislation that attempts to “draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate purveyors of news.” The legislation, Senate Bill 448, would define a legitimate journalist as a person working as a salaried employee of, or independent contractor for, a recognized publisher or broadcaster of news. Those falling outside this definition would be denied the privileges granted to established news media under freedom of the press. “The American people need to be protected from being misled by unauthorized sources,” Feinstein...

The New York Times on Friday said it probably will have to lay off newsroom employees, because it doesn't expect to get enough people to volunteer for buyouts. The paper in October announced plans to shed 100 jobs from its 1,250-person newsroom and said it hoped to achieve the reductions entirely through buyouts. Employees were told they had until Dec. 7 to decide whether to take the offer and that the paper would resort to layoffs if too few people volunteered. "We will not know until [Monday] how many Guild and excluded employees have opted to take buyouts, but it...

The New York Times News Service will lay off at least 25 editorial employees next year and will move the editing of the service to a Florida newspaper owned by The New York Times Company, the newspaper and the Newspaper Guild said Thursday... The plan for the news service calls for The Gainesville Sun, whose newsroom is not unionized and has lower salaries, to take over editing and page design. Ms. McNulty said new jobs would be created at The Sun to handle the work.