Just a year ago, when the Tampa Tribune announced it was axing 70 jobs, 10 from the newsroom, it came as no big surprise. Those cuts were pretty much in line with what other papers had been announcing in response to ongoing declines in circulation and ad revenue.
What a difference a year makes.
New cuts are in store for the Tribune, and they're a lot harsher.
Parent Media General has offered buyouts fully half of the people at its Tampa operations, which include the paper but also a TV station, among other media properties.
In all, 650 or so of some 1,300 employees are affected. Media General, which also owns the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is blaming the recession for steep losses.
Welcome to what could be a whole new era of downsizing and turmoil in the American newspaper industry.
As the sinking economy's squeeze tightens, papers are considering measures that might have been out of the question just two years ago, or even a year ago.
“If the economy continues to bottom out, combined with the reduction of classifieds and some of the other slowdowns, the pressure on revenues is pretty dramatic,” says Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg.
“Papers have to get expenses in line with revenues. I think we’ll see some pretty substantial cuts in the next several months.”
In fact, the pace of job cuts has already picked up. So far this year, nearly 8,000 people in the media industry have lost their jobs, according to a study by a Chicago recruitment firm. That's up 57 percent over last year at this time.
And while the staff trimmings are often termed buyouts, the reality is that they're looking a lot more like straight cuts, with far skimpier severance deals. Those who decline the buyouts face the strong prospect of simply getting shoved out the door.
Of the Tampa cuts, one unnamed online writer quips: “Gee, don't look for too many takers of that great offer. Of course, the next step after no one takes the buyout will be more layoffs.”
One big risk, of course, is that in cutting so harshly newspapers will so weaken their editorial coverage that even more readers will chuck the subscriptions, further accelerating circulation declines.
In the case of Tampa, 270 editors and reporters now put out the paper, which has a weekday circulation of 220,522. Media General is not saying how many newsroom jobs will be cut, but what if those ranks are trimmed to, say 200, or 150? One must wonder what sort of paper they would put out.
At what point in trimming staff does the editorial product suddenly get a lot worse? No one really knows. It could take months or even years to know for sure, and then it might be too late. It's a risky proposition.
Yet more and more papers are confronting in the face of revenue declines and rising costs, which include newsprint and also fuel to deliver papers to readers. Staffing is the one area publishers feel they can cut.
In recent weeks, the Orange County (Calif.) Register announced it’s slashing 5 percent of its ranks, or 90 employees, in its third round of layoffs in a year. The New York Times recently offered buyouts to 100 in the newsroom, and it had said it will resort to layoffs if it doesn't get that number.
This week, McClatchy announced cuts at the Charlotte Observer, and those follow previously announced cuts at the Modesto Bee and the Raleigh News and Observer.
And as Poynter's Edmonds suggests we'll likely see more in these coming months as publishers struggle to keep up their profit margins in the face of sinking revenues and demands from Wall Street.
A lot of eyes will be on Tampa. The question will inevitably arise: If Tampa can slice its workforce in half, and pull it off, why wasn't it done a year ago? Two years ago?
It says the entire operation was overstaffed, presumably long overstaffed.
And if it was true in Tampa, it would only follow that it's true at many other papers as well. Or that's the way Wall Street will see it. And that will put even more pressure on papers to cut costs. It won’t be pretty.
