I know I'm supposed to be taking the week off, but I couldn't help linking to the story about the layoffs at the Star.
The Arizona Daily Star cut 11 newsroom positions today, citing slumping advertising sales and the real-estate downturn.
Star Publisher and Editor John Humenik announced the layoffs today in a newsroom meeting with staffers. He declined to name the employees but said they were offered severance packages.
"The reason for the staff reductions is we need to reduce costs," Humenik said.
"Advertisers are advertising less because their sales are down."
The cuts at the Star are the latest in a series of newspaper layoffs and buyouts nationwide as papers cope with flagging advertising revenues.
Michael Marizco who is a former Star reporter and now writes a blog called Border Reporter has the names of those who were let go.
Last June, I predicted that layoffs at the Star were inevitable. Just like I predicted that the Tribune would be free.
Update: You know, it strikes me as odd that the people who got laid off have high seniority, are older and probably make higher salaries. I think the EEOC might just send the Star a certified letter that says "Prepare to be Boarded." Too bad I'm not a lawyer...yet.
Meanwhile at the Republic.
The Republic announced that it will continue to cherry pick the most profitable regions and abandon the rest of the state.
The Arizona Republic announced Monday that it will discontinue home delivery and single-copy newspaper sales in Kingman, Bullhead City, Parker, Quartzsite and Lake Havasu City, effective Dec. 31.
Readers in those areas have the option to receive a paper edition of The Arizona Republic by mail or an electronic edition via the Internet.
Arizona Republic President John Zidich said it was increasingly difficult to provide quality service on a consistent, cost-effective basis in those markets.
Abandoning the river cities is a huge shift for the Republic. The paper had full-time reporters in Mohave County for many years with current TV critic Bill Goodykoontz being the last in the early 1990s. It also was a major initiative of the paper during that time, when Pat Murphy was still around as editor, to make that rapidly growing area of the Colorado River area a zone much like any of the urban zone editions.
Until recently, the Republic had as many as 8,000 subscribers in Mohave County alone. So this move alone will cause a 2% fall in circulation.
I've pointed out before that a physical distribution model that involves shipping a 2 pound chunk of paper to an ever shrinking number of people over an ever expanding geographic area is destined to collapse. You can look at the economics of the post office, milk distribution or Amtrak and see the future of the Newspaper.
Tell me again why the state forces businesses to pay for public notices? I thought that the newspaper had something of a public trust and would send information to the hard-to-reach parts of the state in exchange for forcing business to spend money on the notices.
But now the papers are whining that serving those areas isn't profitable. Of course, they still accept the money from the public notices. Seems like this is one more reason why that arrangement should go away.
The Star layoffs really stink.
They targeted people who have worked their hearts out for 20 to 30 years, no exaggeration. George Campbell, Lupe Ortiz, John Hassen and some of the others have worked at that rag since the 80s. Rutha was there so long I believe she helped close the old downtown newspaper building in the mid-70s!
Clearly, they targeted people who made a decent living because of longevity. Many of these people have children and granchildren that they're raising.
And they did it just before Christmas. Talk about Scrooge!
Posted by: SonoranSam | December 05, 2007 at 05:12 PM
"Advertisers are advertising less because their sales are down."
He's lying, of course. Advertising spending nationwide continues to increase, and I'm sure it's up at least as much in Tucson. Certain segments are down (e.g., real estate), but that's almost always true. Overall, advertising is up.
A truer statement would be: "Advertisers are advertising less in our paper because we are no longer a cost-effective medium for their message."
Long-term prediction: Gannett buys the Star, merges it with the Citizen, and then, over time, merges the Tucson and Phoenix operations.
Posted by: BobH | December 05, 2007 at 08:43 PM
Greg, you're giving out your great legislative/ACC ideas for free? The Cap Times has been trying to stave off eliminating this requirement (public notices) by providing a searchable online database, but they are still taking money for publishing in the actual paper. It's classic government-mandated rent-like payments to support the newspaper business.
If Craig's List is killing the paper's classifieds, can you start a Greg's List to kill the public notice section?
Posted by: Timothy | December 06, 2007 at 01:23 PM