Newspapers

The San Diego Union Tribune eliminated 192 positions back in May after being bought by an equity firm. Now, it seems like they may want to hire some of those folks back...at least the copy editors.

Oops!

h/t (and more!) NBC San Diego

The owner of the Falls Church News-Press tried to buy the Blade from its bankrupt parent company, the Washington City Paper reports.

According to a press release issued today, Nicholas F. Benton, who has published the FCNP since 1991, won a bid in September to purchase the assets of the Blade "for purposes of a seamless perpetuation of the nation's oldest gay community newspaper." Benton says the sale process continued through November 6, and then he didn't hear anything until yesterday, when he was informed the paper had been shuttered. "Everything was in place, although moving slowly, to make the seamless transition we hoped for. But I remain unaware of what happened, and as a result of Monday's events, the Blade is gone after 40 years of publication, its employees are out of work, and the nation's and region's LGBT community has been stripped of an invaluable institution," Benton said in the statement.

More here

John Solomon, who's been missing at The Washington Times since the shake-up on Monday, has officially resigned, effective Nov. 6.

But when Jonathan Slevin moved up to acting president and publisher on Monday (the 9th, if you're keeping score), replacing Tom McDevitt, he didn't mention Solomon's resignation, Politico reports.

Solomon joined TWT in January 08, when he was hired away from the Washington Post.

David Jones, managing editor for print, and Jeffrey Birnbaum, managing editor for digital, will co-run TWT on an interim basis.

You know, we have to give it to the NYT: the company announced that in order to cut costs, it's freezing pension and benefit plans for its managers but not its unionized workers.

This'll save the company something like $110 million in just the fourth quarter of 2009.

Kudos to the company for cutting benefits of its higher-ups first. It's a tough decision when you have to do this but this will help morale.

(h/t MediaMemo)

Three top execs at the Washington Times have been "relieved of their duties", according to a statement issued from the paper and reported on by the Washington Post.

Times president and publisher Thomas P. McDevitt, chief financial officer Keith Cooperrider and chairman Dong Moon Joo were ousted in a move some speculate to be based in economic necessity. Others theorize that the firings reflect a power struggle between the three sons of the paper's owner, Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Former vice chairman Jonathan Slevin has been named acting president and publisher; the other two positions remain unfilled.

Publisher McDevitt was, the Post reports, new executive editor John Solomon's "chief protector." It is unclear what will happen to Solomon now.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's owner has extended buyout offers to all 144 of its managers, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reports. It is the paper's third buyout offer in 13 months.

"We feel that this move, along with the success of numerous new revenue initiatives, will ensure the continued strength of the P-G," said P-G president Chris Chamberlain in a statement.

The P-G employs about 900 people total; newspaper officials declined to state how much they hoped to save through the buyout or whether there would be layoffs if not enough people accepted the offer.

Battle Royale! Shrinking newspaper budgets don't always mean good news for interns, as cheap labor has to be weighed against the morale hits a newsroom will take if it appears staffers are being replaced by interns.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is among the papers that cut intern programs or eliminated them entirely, Editor & Publisher reports. And the paper had already extended offers to interns before it cut the program, leaving some j-students scrambling at the last minute. Uncool.

The Cincinnati Enquirer hasn't taken a single intern in five years. The Topeka Capitol-Journal still takes on five interns or so a year, but 2009 was the third summer that the interns worked for free.

On the other hand, hey, interns are free labor, and some papers seem to be espousing the we'd-be-crazy-if-we-passed-THAT-up attitude.

"Everyone is short-staffed," Carl Lewis, a journalism and Southern Studies major and former intern, told E&P, "so they're looking for as many people as they can to work part time, and without benefits."

Too, interns are doing far less grunt work these days. Which can only add to the perception that low-or-no-paid college students are replacing oldtimers...

E.W. Scripps (SSP), despite posting a small profit last quarter, swung to a $3.5 million loss in the third quarter of 2009 on revenues of $186 million, the company reported today.

Year over year advertising revenue fell 27 percent, which the company called an "improvement." How? Because in the second quarter of 2009, ad revenue fell 29 percent —so the decline is slowing!

Even online advertising was down, by 20 percent to $7.3 million, the company reported, because most online ad sales are tied to print ads. When you take print out of the equation, online ad revenue rose 38 percent to a whopping $3.9 million.

"As we head into the last quarter of this very difficult year, we believe the advertising and expense trends we experienced in the third quarter will continue," said Rich Boehne, president and chief executive officer of the company, in a statement.

E.W. Scripps owns 14 newspapers and runs the Scripps Howard News Service. It just bought a 65 percent stake in the Travel Channel, beating out a bid from News Corp.

The Oregonian needs to shed about 70 positions from its newsroom, but only 31 staffers have signed up to take a buyout, which is on offer until Monday, the Willamette Week reports.

The paper used to guarantee job security for life, though obviously much has changed since that pledge was made.

According to the Oregonian's own web site, there are 209 staffers in the newsroom (Oregon Media Central puts the number closer to 300), but either way, a reduction of 70 is pretty severe.

The e-mail from Sandy Rowe, editor of the Oregonian, to staff, after the jump.

continued...

Right after announcing it would close its Boston bureau, the Wall Street Journal is gonna make a brand new start of it in old New York, with the announcement that the paper will hire a dozen reporters to cover traditional city desk beats in the Big Apple.

It's part of owner Rupert Murdoch's plan to create a New York edition, which could launch early next year, the New York Times reports.

An obvious choice for the NYC staffers would be the laid-off Boston writers, but they covered the Boston mutual fund industry, not crime, courts, and city hall. Even assuming that all nine Boston writers switch beats, that still leaves three open slots, so get that résumé ready.