Chicago Tribune to cut 80

Wasn't sure if this was a db.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-080708tribune-cuts,0,93192.story

The Chicago Tribune began informing staff Tuesday it will eliminate around 80 of its current 578 newsroom positions by the end of August and reduce the number of pages it publishes by 13 percent to 14 percent each week.

There also will be a reduction of jobs in other Chicago Tribune departments, but that number was not immediately available. A paper spokesman declined comment.

Because some newsroom jobs have been left unfilled in recent months, the actual number of staffers to exit the paper is expected to be between 55 and 58.

 

Readers will love it. Actually, they can replace the lost work with reprints of Lee Abrams memos-right next to the funnies where they belong.

 

Hopefully the five cut will include all of the columnists...

People can rip Skip Bayless all they want, but the Tribune sports section was 100X more interesting when he was writing. I liked Michael Holley as well, but you never got the sense that he wanted to be there, sort of like the guy who lasted in Denver for about a year before bolting.

 

I was going to mosey over in this direction, but restrained myself, for a while . . .

The problem isn't solely in sports, with the Trib. The broad columnist roster leaves much to be desired for a paper seeking to serve a city of that size.

A hit-and-run driver like Bayless doesn't suit Chicago at all. And I'm leaving young Munster out of this discussion, since he types for the competiton.

 

I would consider the Chicago Tribune to be the most underachieving major paper in the country.

It should be one of the best in the country. Instead, the Sun-Times has three columnists who are more interesting than anyone the Tribune has.

 

Telander could take a walk and immediately be the best columnist in the paper, by a country mile.

 

They could do even better than that, though. Unless saving on moving expenses is the driving force.

Telander is a great guy and outstanding magazine writer. But his reluctance/refusal to do deadline work should eliminate him from a daily newspaper job. And if that alleged reluctance/refusal is untrue, well, then what we're seeing in print reveals other flaws.

Place has been underachieving in columnists since it downplayed/demoted Bob Verdi and, of course, since Royko died.

 

As I've said about 1,000 times, Couch is the best columnist in Chicago and the most underrated columnist in the country.

 

At the risk of offending Mike Imrem, I agree with you, at least on the first part. Can't quite get my head around the second part today. Brain cloud or something.

 

Someone told me awhile back that they tried to throw a ton of cash at Wilbon to get him to come home, but he wanted no part of it.

I thought Downey was going to be a home run, but instead it's been more of an infield fly.

 

The fact The Chicago Tribune's newsroom will go down by 14 percent, and newsrooms in Baltimore, LA, Allentown and Hartford were reduced more like 25 percent, is bullshit, and doesn't go over real well in any of the non-Chcago cities that already despise Chicago to begin with. The Trib has probably the worst sports section in the Tribune chain, and is hit the weakest.