Strib to cut 145 positions

If any of them are regulars here, I'll let you come write stories for me at $50/story until you land on your feet again. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's a good chance to stay active during what must be a bad time for you. Sorry to hear about the cuts. Truly.

 

nicely played.

 

Two things about "bloat":

1.) It's hard to judge from afar whether a staff is bloated because it depends what the expectations are and what kinds of people are there. The hardest-working staff I was on had about 500, the least hardest-working had about half that.

2.) It is depressing to be on a bloated staff if you like to work. If you are that type, you are going to find a way to keep busy regardless of the circumstances; it's your nature to make every job as difficult as possible. Even if you are completely aware that you are self-motivated, it's hard not to notice the people doing the minimum. The fact that you also could get away with doing the minimum if you wanted to is irrelevant. I was on a paper once that cut more than a quarter of its staff and I have to admit I took some pleasure in seeing some people have to do their first honest work in years.

 

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/05/09/midday1/

Oh the humanity! Maybe none at all? I think some people are going a little over the top right now. That's right -- both still profitable dailies could fold by the end of next year, leaving Twin Cities citizens with nothing but the Utne Reader and a couple of shoppers and blogs.

 

And more changes at the Strib...

Star Tribune to refocus on increasing local coverage

The emphasis will be on giving readers local news that no one else can provide. But likely casualties include Mindworks.

By Matt McKinney, Star Tribune

Last update: May 14, 2007 – 9:27 PM

As it shrinks its staff, the Star Tribune announced a reorganization of its newsroom on Monday with plans to push more reporters into the suburbs to capture new readers and new advertisers.

The plan kills some jobs while creating others to redeploy reporters in large communities that today have almost no coverage in the newspaper, from Bloomington to Anoka to Chaska.

"We want to cover our readers where they live, and that is not something we do well," Star Tribune Editor Nancy Barnes said.

Barnes, who began pitching her vision to the newsroom staff on Monday in the first of a series of department meetings, pointed out that Bloomington, with about 84,000 residents, is one of the largest cities in the state -- yet there's no Bloomington reporter on staff.

The moves come as circulation and advertising revenue at the newspaper have fallen in recent months, with the former cash cow of classified advertising leading the descent, down 23 percent in the first quarter compared with last year.

The newspaper's weekday circulation, meanwhile, fell 4.8 percent to 345,242 for the six-month period ending March 30, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Sunday circulation fell 5.1 percent to 575,406 for the same period.

The declines led Publisher Par Ridder last week to call for 145 job cuts across the newspaper, primarily through voluntary buyouts. About 50 jobs will be taken from the newsroom, which now totals 383 people -- and even after the cuts it will remain the largest newsroom in the state. The measure comes just weeks after a round of 24 voluntary buyouts that were triggered by the March 5 sale of the Star Tribune for $530 million to Avista Capital Partners, a private equity firm. The two rounds of buyouts total about 20 percent of the newsroom staff.

The Star Tribune's problems aren't unusual: Newspapers nationwide saw daily circulation fall 2.1 percent and Sunday by 3.1 percent, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

Other papers also are focusing locally. The Dallas Morning News last year closed foreign bureaus and refocused the paper on local coverage. It's too soon to know if that has paid off, but the trend is clear, said Rick Edmonds, a newspaper industry expert at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Newspapers have recognized that their strength is in local news and watchdog reporting. Movie reviews, meanwhile, have become big business for websites such as Rotten Tomatoes and others, he said.

The Star Tribune hasn't had to compete for the first-tier suburbs because, unlike Boston and Chicago, for example, most of the suburbs surrounding the Twin Cities do not have their own daily newspapers.

"You're unusual in that respect," Edmonds said.

Unique coverage

The Star Tribune's reorganization, still in draft form, calls for "local news, ambitious journalism, and richer, deeper multimedia reporting for our website," said a memo sent to staff Monday afternoon. The paper may publish zoned editions later this year.

Barnes said she thinks local coverage is more than the suburbs: "It means covering our Fortune 500 businesses, our major sports franchises, our rich arts and entertainment community. I consider covering our state's Washington delegation to be local news, as well as coverage of state government, the environment and health care. I think projects and investigations is also local [coverage]. 'Local' is coverage we provide that no one else can."

A "continuous news" hub in the newsroom will expand and publish more stories online throughout the day. The hub someday may add television and radio capabilities, Barnes added, but whether that's a Star Tribune-owned station or the ability to partner with a local channel is not yet clear.

The shake-up includes dropping some features: The paper still plans to reassign one of its four local columnists. The Scene and Source Go+Do sections published on Fridays will become one. Other sections also may change, but decisions haven't been finalized.

The Mindworks feature will disappear. The editorial-pages staff will be reduced by five writers, leaving it with seven. The paper's one-person Duluth bureau may close, but talks continue, Barnes said.

And a host of reporters have been told that they will need to apply for jobs elsewhere within the newspaper, including national television critic Neal Justin, features columnist James Lileks, and writers who cover travel, college basketball and sports business.

Undoing some changes

The features staff, which had been beefed up in a redesign of the paper less than two years ago, was particularly hurt. Barnes denied that the current reorganization is a sign that the redesign was a failure, noting that many of its design changes will stay. But the Source section will return to previous staffing levels, she said.

And last week, Barnes announced that Christine Ledbetter, features editor for the Chicago Sun-Times, will join the Star Tribune as assistant managing editor for features, filling a position vacant for almost a year.

Also, the paper's Washington bureau temporarily will go dark next week when intern Brady Averill leaves. She has worked solo since March 5, when the paper lost two full-time staffers under the terms of the newspaper's sale to Avista. Barnes said a reporter will be named "soon."

Media experts said focusing on local news is wise.

"If you have to cut back, it's good to do at least one thing well; local news is a good choice," said Philip Meyer, author of the book "The Vanishing Newspaper" and a professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

And while it's widely understood that the newspaper industry has been thumped by falling circulation and anemic advertising performance, no one seems to have a good answer for future success.

"Radical experimentation should be welcomed," Meyer said.

 

This doesn't sound too bad. Granted, it sucks big time that they're going through all these gut-wrenching changes...

One question, and perhaps a Twin Cities resident can educate me/us: Doesn't the paper already DO a zoned edition? (I seem to recall South, West and North editions on Wednesdays...)

 

If they weren't covering local, what the hell were those 383 editorial employees covering?

 

Bloomington has had a population close to 80,000 for 30+ years. It has always been a Minneapolis newspaper town, even going back to the days of four.

They do a zoned edition.

 

Bingo! If they weren't covering local news that intensely, it's a wonder the Strib's circulation was that high in the first place.

 

It's the state... no, the Region's paper.
But yeah, why they haven't gone into the Burbs more is beyond me... wait, no competition.
PiPress doesnt go into Minnetonka and Chanhassen and Strib isn't big on Little Canada or Woodbury.

 

True, but a paper that size should be able to serve both masters. (Although screwing the outstate people to focus on metro didn't seem to work for the Des Moines Register.)

 

I agree with you. It should -- especially with burbs like Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Bloomington (between the MOA and size of the town, it should have a bureau, not just a reporter), Golden Valley...
Closing the Duluth bureau makes no sense at all. You can't be a regional or state paper if you dont have reporters there. One reporter to cover the north and you want to eliminate the job?