Further to my posting earlier on job losses at US wire agency the Associated Press, Gawker has been keeping a running total of job losses in both the United States and in news bureaux elsewhere in the world.
The list is being constantly updated as more information and tip offs become available.
The full AP layoff list can be found here.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7e561eb0-ef3a-4590-9cce-7d6eb0ee4edd)
The Associated Press has laid off “dozens” of news staff as part of the agency‘s bid to reduce staffing costs by 10% this year.
The moves come as the 163-year-old cooperative wire agency has grappled with falling revenues, mutiny from its members and well-publicised battles against search engines and aggregators that it accuses of making money off the back of its services.
While US news media was buzzing yesterday as first word of the cuts began to filter out, the AP — which prides itself on fast breaking news — was itself uncharacteristically slow in reporting what was happening.
When it eventually came, the AP story didn’t say how many staff were being laid off, but the News Media Guild, which represents around 1,300 employees in the US, said as of Tuesday evening 38 Guild-covered reporters, editors and photographers had been told they were no longer required. It dubbed the day “Black Tuesday”.
AP said its cost cutting goal was set late last year as it prepared to lower fees for newspapers and broadcasters that had been hit by recession and the shift of advertising to the Internet.
The AP story said:
AP’s revenue is expected to fall about 6 percent this year to roughly $700 million.
Hoping to minimize layoffs, the AP imposed a hiring freeze late last year and offered early retirement packages to longtime employees over the summer. About 100 opted for those packages.
It’s been a tough year for the news business in the United States. Newspaper circulation across the country plunged by an average 10.6% in the six months to 30 September, while earlier this month the struggling Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and other Tribune Co newspapers planned to do an AP cold turkey for a week as part of a test to see if all ties with the news agency can be severed next year.
The AP has promised members rate reductions averaging around 20%, but with its content perceived to be increasingly less relevant and the costs for the service harder to sustain, many question what the future holds for the news agency.
AP supremeo Tom Curley has been aggressively fighting (alongside Rupert Murdoch) giant news search services such as Google and Microsoft saying they should be made to pay for AP content. Curley says sites such as Google have reaped a fortune off AP articles, photos and video without paying fair compensation.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f1dfd177-6b24-43fb-8cab-22a769b6ce93)
The only US newspaper to show circulation increase
If there is still anyone that doubts there is a crisis in the newspaper publishing industry they must be very well hidden. It seems that as every day passes more bad news emerges. Today, it was the turn of the US Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) to hammer in new coffin nails and paint a picture of massively accelerating decline.
Consider this — across the 379 newspapers in the mix, daily circulation fell by an average 10.6% to 30.39 million copies for the six months to 30 September 2009 compared to 34 million copies in the same period last year. For the sake of comparison, the decline this time round was more than double that in the previous period. I’m not a betting man, but unless there is radical change it is becoming a question of when not if major newspapers go under.
But there is more to this than just the market telling newspapers it is no longer as interested in their products as it once was. Unlike other recessions, this time round responses to the grim economics from publishers is fuelling a vicious cycle of accelerating decline. As readership shrinks and ad revenue fades, publishers are left with little choice other to reduce costs in every way possible. Huge staff cuts means the underlying quality proposition of the title is eroded, while cuts in the numbers of copies distributed free or heavily discounted means the reach of the publication is adversely impacted. Result — circulation falls further and ad revenue declines faster as the ABCs are a key indicator for businesses deciding where to place their advertising spend. Ow. That really hurts.
Only one of the top 25 newspapers was credited with circulation growth. The News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal’s circulation rose 0.6% to 2.02 million.
Top 25 US newspapers by circulation (source: ABC)
| 1 | Wall Street Journal | 2,024,269 | +0.61% |
| 2 | USA Today | 1,900,116 | -17.15% |
| 3 | New York Times | 927,851 | -7.28% |
| 4 | Los Angeles Times | 657,851 | -11.05% |
| 5 | The Washington Post | 582,844 | -6.4% |
| 6 | New York Daily News | 544,167 | -13.98% |
| 7 | New York Post | 508,042 | -18.77% |
| 8 | Chicago Tribune | 465,892 | -9.72% |
| 9 | Houston Chronicle | 384,892 | -9.72% |
| 10 | Philadelphia Inquirer | 361,480 | n/a |
| 11 | Newsday | 357,124 | -5.40% |
| 12 | The Denver Post | 340,949 | -14.24 |
| 13 | The Arizona Republic | 316,874 | -12.30% |
| 14 | Star Tribune, Minneapolis | 304,543 | -5.53% |
| 15 | Chicago Sun-Times | 275,641 | -11.98% |
| 16 | The Plain Dealer, Cleveland | 271,180 | -11.24% |
| 17 | Detroit Free Press | 269,729 | -9.56% |
| 18 | The Boston Globe | 264,105 | -18.48% |
| 19 | The Dallas Morning News | 263,810 | -22.16% |
| 20 | The Seattle Times | 263,588 | n/a |
| 21 | San Francisco Chronicle | 251,782 | -25.82% |
| 22 | The Oregonian | 249,163 | -12.06% |
| 23 | The Star-Ledger, Newark | 246,006 | -22.22% |
| 24 | San Diego Union-Tribune | 242,705 | -10.05% |
| 25 | St Petersberg (Fla) Times | 240,147 | -10.70% |
Media Guardian Latest Top news from Reuters paidContent – The Economics of ContentCopyright © Andy Soloman
Global Journalism and New Media
Built on Notes Blog Core
Powered by WordPress
