We wrote last year about some of the problems facing the news industry, particularly print media. Since then, the Los Angeles Times has been purchased by Sam Zell. Despite initial promises to shore up the Times staff, Zell has moved forward with buyouts and layoffs to downsize staff. So not much has changed in that regard from the previous Tribune Co. regime at the Times.
Kevin Roderick at LAObserved had a list of the latest casualties of what he called "Zellutation." Just how much fat is there left to trim? Roderick reported the Times is also doing away with guided tours of the Times Building.
Roderick hosted KCRW 89.9FM's "The Politics of Culture" last Tuesday, and he discussed the intersection of journalism and blogging with blogger (and journalist) Joshua Micah Marshall from TalkingPointsMemo.com. Thanks to Gary Scott for pointing out that audio link (more on Scott below).
And Ed Padgett's Los Angeles Times Pressmens 20-Year Club blog has been covering the cutbacks on the Times' production end. Padgett's post on Friday noted that 31 people were cut from from the Times' Orange County and downtown Los Angeles production facilities.
Things aren't much better over at the Daily Bulletin, whose parent company, Media News Group, has forced layoffs at many of the papers they own: The Daily Bulletin, The Daily Breeze, The Long Beach Press-Telegram, The Los Angeles Daily News, The Pasadena Star-News, The San Bernardino Sun, The San Gabriel Valley Tribune, The Whittier Daily News, and The San Jose Mercury News, to name a few.
Gary Scott's Reporter-G blog has a list of the latest cuts at the Bulletin and at the three papers comprising the San Gabriel Valley News Group (The Star-News, The SGV Tribune, and the Whittier Daily News).
Surveying the wreckage, one cannot help but be struck by the fact that the combination of the media consolidation and streamlining/restructuring in the form of downsizing has to have an effect on the end product. That paper you get each morning is bound to get thinner and less substantive.
Meanwhile, The Claremont Courier continues to chug along, having undergone an online and print edition makeover. Yes, we've had our criticisms about the Courier, but they do seem to know their market, and they've even managed to provide some decent coverage of a few important community issues (affordable housing and the Village Expansion, to name two).
Perhaps there's a micro-niche for the community-specific newspaper that the Courier can fill.
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