If we're lucky, it will look something like the newspaper of the past.
As newspaper circulation cartwheels into the abyss and print advertisers defect to the Web, publishers keep profit margins high by snipping, shearing, and slicing costs. The large-wingspan Wall Street Journal recently shrank its page size to the industry standard to save an estimated $18 million annually, and the New York Times will soon follow.
Dollar-pinching publishers are now paying experienced reporters and editors to leave their jobs. Buyouts will soon reduce the Los Angeles Times to 850 journalists, about three-quarters of its peak. The San Francisco Chronicle has announced plans to cut the newsroom from 400 to 300. The San Jose Mercury News employed 400 journalists seven years ago and will soon have only 200 crashing the keyboards. Similar stories can be told about the Dallas Morning News, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Baltimore Sun, and other newspapers. Foreign bureaus are being shuttered, and full-time arts slots at newspapers in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago, and elsewhere have been eliminated or downgraded.
How many journalists can a newspaper jettison before its hair falls out and its ribs start showing?
This from Slate.
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