Here’s what we’ve found as we’ve traveled the local PDX web (complete with our comments) for March 23rd:
Yes, it’s an all-Oregonian roundup — I believe that the implosion of traditional print publications will end up being the story of the decade.
I canceled my newspaper subscription a few months ago. Since then, I’d come home to find two…three..up to four calls per day in my caller ID — all from The Oregonian’s circulation department. Were they leaving messages offering me deals? Um, no. Instead, they were frantically dialing, trying to connect with a live body.
Two or three weeks ago, the calls stopped. Now, I know why…
- Advance Announces Company-wide Furloughs | Editor and Publisher – "Our publishers and we have been deciding particular responses for different markets, trying to make smart choices," [Advance.net Chairman Steve] Newhouse added. "Our overall objective is to build our local franchises in a sustainable way, and keep up the good journalism we do. These are responses to the changing events and the problems in newspapers."
- UPDATED–O: Furlough Shoe Drops AND Salary Cuts | Oregon Media Insiders – Oregonian owner Advance has announced mandatory 10-day furloughs along with a pension freeze at all its properties outside Michigan. Word came to the O today:
"Most of our papers will have two measures," Newhouse said. "One is a freeze of our defined benefit plan, or pension, that will be paired with an increase in our 401 (k) match. The other is a mandatory 10-day furlough, unpaid furlough." …
Newhouse said the furloughs would likely be required within the next 12 months or by the end of 2009, he was not sure. He also did not have specific figures on the 401 (k) increase.
- Oregonian issues furloughs, pension freeze after losing millions – Portland Business Journal: – From the article..
Advance, owned by the Newhouse family, is also considering drastic changes for five Michigan papers. It is switching the Ann Arbor News to an online-only publication, according to Editor & Publisher, a journalism trade magazine.
The Newhouses didn’t reveal how much their papers have lost since 2007.
Tim Gleason, dean of the University of Oregon's journalism and communications school, said the Oregonian isn't immune to challenges faced by newspapers nationwide.
"I don't think you can find a major metro daily in the country that's not in similar shape," Gleason said. "The Newhouses have a long history of backing journalism and aren't as held to the bottom line as much as other companies. The fact that the Oregonian is making these cuts is indicative of how serious this problem is."
What do you think? Is this just another death knell of traditional media as we know it? More a reaction to the current economic climate? Or both…?
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I canceled my O a couple of weeks ago, when I got notice that my admittedly almost criminally low monthly rate ($8.33 a month) was being raised more than 50 percent. They asked me why; I gave them several content reasons (several of their cutbacks have been nonsensical), followed almost off-handedly by the fact I thought I might be soon be moving from the area.
They haven’t called me once. I find that astonishing, based on past behavior when I’ve stopped a subscription.
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