If ever you need to be reminded that newspapers are a business, read about Sam Zell's planned cuts at the LA Times, Chicago Tribune and others. In short, they plan to print fewer pages and reduce head count. What's interesting is how they are approaching this: by figuring out the number of column inches created by each journalist. Randy Michaels, COO of Tribune, has concluded they need fewer journalists because some are not producing as much as others.
From the New York Times:
Mr. Michaels said that, after measuring journalists’ output, “when you get into the individuals, you find out that you can eliminate a fair number of people while eliminating not very much content.” He added that he understood that some reporting jobs naturally produce less output than others.
Later on in the Times article is another interesting tidbit:
... Mr. Zell wrote that Tribune papers would be redesigned, beginning with The Orlando Sentinel, on June 22. Surveys show readers want “maps, graphics, lists, ranking and stats,” he wrote. “We’re in the business of satisfying customers, and we will respond to what they say they want.”
A few comments:
- You're going to see more of this approach, not less.
- This is how most businesses behave. However, newspapers and some magazines have not caught up with the times.
- Everyone is blaming the Internet for the demise of newspapers. That's only hastened their demise. At the core is an inability by many to understand that they need to produce useful content. If you don't give your readers what they want, you're out of business.
Some are sure to disagree. Jeffrey Weiss of the Dallas Morning News is one. (Click here.) But it ignores the basic problem facing newspapers -- fewer people are reading them because there's less content that interests them.
