A “Newspaper of Record” Cutting It’s Own Throat

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As both of my long-time readers know, I love newspapers. I delivered the old Lexington Herald and Lexington Leader when I was in junior high and high school in Mt Sterling, Kentucky, I’ve read newspapers thoroughly, and, due to my seriously degraded hearing, I find it much easier to read the news than listen to it on television or radio.

Los Angeles County assistant district attorney Patrick Frey, who has been blogging as Patterico for a couple of decades now, has called the very liberally-oriented Los Angeles Times the Dog Trainer, as in the paper is fit only for getting your puppy to poop on it rather than the floor, and his site logo has a Los Angeles Dog Trainer newspaper declaring in its headline, “PATTERICO! Public Enemy #1”. He even had a category named Dog Trainer, though it hasn’t been added to since 2019. Maybe he got tired of reading it?

But this news saddens me:

L.A. Times to lay off at least 115 people in the newsroom

by Meg James | Tuesday, January 23, 2024 | 4:57 PM PST

The Los Angeles Times announced Tuesday that it was laying off at least 115 people — or more than 20% of the newsroom — in one of the largest workforce reductions in the history of the 142-year-old institution.

The move comes amid projections for another year of heavy losses for the newspaper.

The cuts were necessary because the paper could no longer lose $30 million to $40 million a year without making progress toward building higher readership that would bring in advertising and subscriptions to sustain the organization, said the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.

And herein is the problem. Unlike Jeff Bezos, the multi, multi, multi billionaire founder of Amazon.com, with an estimated net worth of $180.0 billion, who bought and rescued The Washington Post for $250 million, Dr Soon-Shiong has a guesstimated net worth of a mere $5.4 billion. Mr Bezos, who is now demanding that the Post find a way to break even, could easily absorb the losses the Post has been experiencing — assuming that his new girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, doesn’t want a new mansion or yacht — but perhaps Dr Soon-Shiong doesn’t believe that he can.

It’s great when multi-billionaires buy a newspaper, as long as they don’t turn it into their personal toys, and are willing to accept the inevitable, that it’s going to keep losing money. If I had Mr Bezos’ money, I’d buy The Philadelphia Inquirer, and rescue it, make some changes to make it more even handed, but otherwise leave it alone, and accept the inevitable losses.

Perhaps I’m just projecting, but my thought is that calling a one-day strike to protest anticipated layoffs is a good way to put yourself on that layoff list, but hey, the Times employees are free people, and can do what they want. Some are now very free people! The chairman of the Times guild unit, Brian Contreras, is one of those newly freed people.

Among the editors included in the cuts were Washington bureau chief Kimbriell Kelly, deputy Washington bureau chief Nick Baumann, business editor Jeff Bercovici, books editor Boris Kachka and music editor Craig Marks. The Washington bureau and the photography and sports departments saw dramatic cuts, including several award-winning photographers. The video unit was hollowed out.

The Los Angeles Times is listed by Wikipedia as one of the five “newspapers of record” in the United States, which makes this news sadder still. But things like this are going to happen as newspapers respond to increased costs by lowering quality. The Times found out:

Soon-Shiong said he became increasingly dismayed by the lack of progress in readership and other decisions, such as last summer’s elimination of the print edition’s sports listings and box scores, which infuriated readers, leading to thousands of subscription cancellations.

“I was very upset when I learned, after the fact, that we took away sports scores,” Soon-Shiong said.

Really? Did he then reverse that decision?

The Los Angeles Times is going to go broke, because Dr Soon-Shiong is doing the same thing again, writ larger. A reduction of “more than 20% of the newsroom” has to mean a cut in the quantity and quality of the newspaper’s journalism, unless someone wishes to contend that those 115 people being given their pink slips contributed nothing to the quality of the product. If elimination of the print edition’s sports listings and box scores — something I would point out to Executive Editor Richard Green that the Lexington Herald-Leader, which is heavily dependent upon University of Kentucky sports fans has also done — cost the newspaper “thousands of subscription cancellations,” how many more will subscriptions will be lost with 115 journalists laid off, which follows 70 getting canned last summer because the paper just isn’t worth that much to them?

Newspapers are, in the end, 18th century technology, updated with better presses and color photos, but still printed on paper with news that’s already old when it gets to readers. We have previously noted the decision of the Inquirer to sell its own $299.5 million printing plant for just $37 million, laying off 500 people, and the Herald-Leader’s similar action, outsourcing printing from downtown Lexington to outside of Louisville, which makes the newspaper an hour older when delivered to readers, because the printing plant is a hour up Interstate 64.

The Times’ original stated:

Drastic changes were needed, (Dr Soon-Shiong) said, including installing new leaders who would focus on strengthening the outlet’s journalism to become indispensable to more readers.

Yet Tuesday’s actions are making the newspaper less “indispensable” to more readers. If you give potential customers less reason to buy your product, fewer people will buy your product. And that’s just what today’s newspapers are doing.
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