68 Philadelphia Inquirer newsroom layoffs

Skeleton crew? They still have 300-plus people in their newsroom, right? Guess it's a matter of perspective, but it's hard to call a newsroom with more the 300 people a skeleton crew.

 

Depends what the ambitions are. I worked on a staff of 550 that was the hardest-working staff I've ever seen. I worked in a couple newsrooms with 230-270 in which maybe 20 percent of the people hadn't done an honest day's work in a decade.

 

Not all 300 people are based in one office.
And account for weekends, etc. ... it's not exactly well-staffed.
Fourteen months ago, they had 450 people in that newsroom.

 

Bottom line is this. The Inky and the Daily News will come out unless the powers that be shut them down. The people who survived this round of cuts are worried about their future. Again, with a drying revenue base a large overhead and owners who aren't newspaper people, it's not a great scene.

 

http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=728469

Daily News is seeking two young reporters. Slap in the face to those who got cut. Heaven forbid they pony up whatever the Guild scale differential would be and re-hire two folks.

 

Weren't all the cuts from the Inky, though?

 

Yes, but PMH did move a reporter or two to the Daily News to prevent some other layoffs. I'm sure the laid off would take a job in the Daily News newsroom.

 

I've been impressed, too, with the manner in which the Inky has been able to keep quality.

But I must concur with something that has been alluded to ... it seems awfully tough to put out a sports section with a five-man desk ... unless you've put out a sports section with a two-man desk.

It's all relative.

 

I'll add the caveat that it depends on the size of the section. A major newspaper section -- say, 16 pages (broadsheet), mostly open -- would be a bear to get out with only five people, whereas a small-paper section with six pages and heavy ad coverage would be a relative breeze with five.

 

You would think so, but that's not always true. I worked on a mid-major and major metro that had very tight space yet served as "papers of record" and strived to be complete products, thus placed an emphasis on heavy editing of staff and wire. It's like the old writer who said, "I didn't have time to write short, so I wrote long." When you are struggling to make every inch count and tightening and condensing rather than just slashing, you are going to be working harder at it than the copy editor working on a loose section who edits twice as many files but has to do less with them. The SE at the major metro once told the staff that if we someday magically got more space, we wouldn't be running longer stories, we would be doing more things with the section. Some of those tight sections are a bear to put out if the paper is serious about its hard news.

 

Shot, I know you know this from being close to the area, but the people who survived the cuts are very prideful. They want to put out a good product despite the bullshit that is happening. More importantly, they are professionals. Never forget that.

 

Rumor is that David Aldridge has whined or threatened his way back onto the staff somehow and that they axed somebody else on newsside in his place.