It was so windy in Chicago, that my American flight from Paris circled the airfield for 90 minutes before finally choosing one of the few runways that were open yesterday afternoon. And the turbulence continues on the ground in the windy city as I read this morning that the axe is going to fall on more newspaper journalism jobs in Chicago.
The Sun-Times let go many journalists a few months ago and now the Tribune Company tells financial analysts that the big Trib papers (LA Times and Chicago Tribune) have been measuring reporter’s output by column inches produced per year and have concluded that they “could do without a large number of news employees and not lose much content.”
That, according to a New York Times article that goes on to attribute this quote to the company’s Chief Operating Officer, “This is going to happen quickly.”
And here’s the new layoff math according the COO’s yardstick:
The Los Angeles Times produced 51 pages of news for each journalist there, while the figure for two other Tribune papers, The Baltimore Sun and The Hartford Courant, is more than 300 pages.
Anyone care to add the figure for the Chicago Tribune’s page output per journalist? One suspects, having once worked in that newsroom, that their output figure is closer to LA’s than to Hartford.
One suspects that since Robb’s frame of reference for the Tribune is 10 years old, he has no idea what he’s talking about.
There’s a lot of reasons why that 51 vs 300 number is bad math, owing to differing newsholes, numbers of sections and the fact that as a productivity number it does nothing to account for what those people are contributing to the web in terms of filing multiple versions of stories, blogging and video.
And that doesn’t even touch the matter of Tribune family wire copy appearing in other papers. Do they get credit for covering Iraq, Myanmar and the NBA finals that appears in other Tribune papers? But I digress . . .
No, what’s fascinating (or, maybe it’s not) is that Robb has taken a troubling and indeed alarming bit of news and used it as a chance to take another cheap slap at the Trib.
It’s a sad tradition (but not entirely unexpected response) that a Chi-Tri editor will attack the reporter instead of the reporting. If defending the status quo in that Chicago newsroom persists, then I would submit that truly nothing fundamental nor visionary has emerged in the leadership since my time there.
My advice to all TribCo employees would be to set a Google News alert for the name “Randy Michaels” asap.
Here’s the 69+ reports you would get today in addition to the one I referenced above that was published by The New York Times.
–> http://news.google.com/news?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=%22%20Randy%20Michaels%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn
And some excerpts from those other voices . . .
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER:
“Not to say that they are dummies, but this is a complex business and I don’t think they understand that,” one reporter said. “Look, I wouldn’t walk into Northwestern [Memorial Hospital] and tell the brain surgeon how to do his job.”
–> http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003813410
Does this anonymous Chicago Tribune reporter really thinks that their job is as complex as brain surgery? Talk. About. Arrogance. (and cowardice)
TribCo rewrite boy Phil Rosenthal only hints at the redesign a-coming your way, Chicago Tribune, but fails to mention that the redesign of the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune will be derived from blueprints first drawn in Orlando.
–> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-fri_rosenthaljun06,0,5851669.column
ORLANDO, as has widely reported in other stories . . . Why isn’t Phil filling in the blanks like the Journal does?
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
“The redesign will start with the Orlando Sentinel this month and later extend to the Los Angeles Times and other Tribune titles like the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun.”
–> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121270007809749889.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
One thing that I have not been able to find via Google (or anywhere else) are the forward-thinking vision statements by the Chicago Tribune’s editor-in-chief.
Can you point us, Steve, to some public statements that she has made in the last year or two about the new direction she is taking her newsroom?
I am having trouble finding any such work done by her.
–> http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en&q=ann+marie+lipinski&ie=UTF8&t=1