Difficult Times: North County Times (San Diego) Writes Off 10% of Staff

North County Times, a Northern San Diego newspaper, has printed pink slips for 34 employees in their announced layoff. 25 of these will come from their newsroom. This comes after 10 employees were delivered their walking papers in September.

We have pontificated on newspapers and advertisements before, so allow us to bring up a different point again. Notice that this was round 2 of layoffs. Many companies learn that when doing a layoff they should do it deeply, so they only have to do it once. However, these days many companies are trying to reduce as little as possible in order to minimize the pains on their employees and wind up having to cut again as things worsen. This can hurt morale and productivity more than the single deep cut purge will do.

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Hark The Herald Sings: Omaha World-Herald to Cut Jobs

Omaha World-Herald is cutting 51 workers in response to the slowed economy and less need for advertisements from real estate professionals and all kinds of businesses that cater to the clownsumer nation.

This is not a surprising hit for layoffs, but it has surprised me that it has come out like clockwork. That particular article is funny as in blaming the Internet solely. They fail to take into account reduced ads across the board. Why advertise to broke clownsumers who can't scrub two nickels together, let alone pony up the cash to buy the intended product to fill the gap in their self-made clownsumed identity.

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Newspaper Woes Continue: The Plain Dealer Increases Layoffs
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Newspaper Woes Continue: The Plain Dealer Increases Layoffs

The Plain Dealer, a Cleveland newspaper, has upped its layoffs to 50 people. This is more than 15% of the staff. There's 50 more people losing paychecks and then having some dependence on the system rather than payments into it.

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Tampa Tribune to lay off 18 workers in the newsroom. In an increasing trend, print newspapers who had come to rely on bubbles created out of the housing bubble and consumer bubble in the wake of the credit bubble are closing or downsizing. I feel many will not come out the other side, how do you think?

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The Journal Register Co. is likely to close some print media newspapers if no buyer emerges. I can't find a possibility of why someone would like to purchase a newspaper in these times? One of the big reasons newspapers hung on as long as they did was the housing bubble. Many of the realtors and contractors were rolling in the fast flowing fat commissions and buying up ads everywhere they could think to buy ads. With sales rolling in as fast as ever and each deal being bigger than the last, there was no time or sense in practicing prudence and seeing which advertising was bringing the yield. Just spend spend spend and they will come. Invariably, some of that spend went to the newspapers and they obliged with the real estate ads all over the place.

That well is tapped now and as other notes here have pointed out advertising as a whole will be scaled back into this recession. Some newspapers are likely to not see the other side of this recession. I do not hazard a guess about this particular one.

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Kitsap Sun, a local newspaper in Washington state, is cutting 26 jobs to weather the problems of a dead media and an economic slowdown where real estate professionals are no longer able to afford advertising.

Although 26 jobs is very few in the grand scheme of things and compared to earlier mega announcements, it does highlight the fact that many of these types of instances are going on around us and will be going on around us for some time to come. In aggregate these number will grow to be large, as witnessed by the horrific October unemployment tracking figures.

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