News of the weak, Part 2
Bloomberg gives a good overview of the cuts at the LA Times — and the ever-shifting management lineup of recent years.
Which only served to remind me that I had forgotten to indict Tribune Company in all this. My mistake. Consider them blamed as well.
The LA Weekly’s Jill Stewart adds this:
We’ve heard back from several top journalists at the Los Angeles Times, who are still in shock over the stunningly bad news that, amidst more layoffs, the California Section, previously known as Metro, will be wiped out and tucked somewhere in the A Section of the recession-whacked newspaper.
This is a big deal, the news quickly appearing in Variety and dozens of other sites. One of the journos I respect the most in Los Angeles, Times reporter and education expert Howard Blume, who is also a former editor and writer at LA Weekly, had this to say in an email to me a short time ago:
“I don’t really know how this is going to work. The discussions have taken place well above my pay grade. There will still be a newspaper, and some of us will still be working here. And those folks will still do their darndest to put out a quality, relevant newspaper. And the rest of us will be looking for alternative employment. This is Journalism 2009.”
As we continue to follow the decline of the Los Angeles Times, remember: It didn’t have to be like this. They can blame new tech for rendering their quaint ways obsolete — but greed and mismanagement left them unprepared for the tides of change.