The Los Angeles Times, under the direction of controversial owner Sam Zell, announced a plan to eliminate 250 jobs throughout the company, including 150 editorial positions. In the usual old media vs. new media rhetoric, Editor Russ Stanton blamed the reductions on the Internet, saying in a staff memo:
"Thanks to the Internet, we have more readers for our great journalism than at any time in our history. But also thanks to the Internet, our advertisers have more choices, and we have less money."
The job cuts will still leave the Times with an editorial staff across both the print newsroom and Web operations of over 700, still one of the largest editorial staffs in the country. In 2001, the paper employed an editorial staff over over 2000.
While many pundits herald this news as a sign that the Web is ringing the death knell for traditional media, the real question that's left is why the Times still had separate editorial staffs for print and online. The Readers' Representative Journal further dissects Stanton's memo to determine that plans for the Times moving forward include a re-designed paper and website, and a combined newsroom for both teams.
Television was supposed to kill radio, and yet it didn't. Competition in the media space forces the old guard to operate in a leaner and meaner fashion than they may have in an era when they were a sole provider. As Stanton noted, the Web has brought even more readers to traditional print media, making many large regional papers like the LA Times a larger national, and even global audience. Recognizing that double staffs may be inefficient isn't a sign that the Web is killing print, only that print is learning that it may not be all that different from the Web after all.
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