Comments on: San Francisco Chronicle Will Cut Newsroom Jobs 25%

By: Jim Satterfield

Jim Satterfield — Tue, 22 May 2007 05:57:09 +0000

The question is not whether newspapers can survive but whether they can survive as publicly held companies. That is the part I question. For one thing as publicly held corporations their concern is with profit, not with reporting the news. Lack of staff causes international news to be almost non-existent with large numbers of papers just using an agency, providing no diversity of coverage. The same thing happens with national news as well.

By: GCA

GCA — Tue, 22 May 2007 01:59:10 +0000

No tears here for the old Chron. They were terrible under the DeYoung & Thierriot families and have only worsened since their purchase by the Hearst family. Every story is an editorial with a leftist agenda. They want to change the world, not report the news. I got sick and tired of them about three years ago and canceled my subscription after many years of increasing disaffection. I know I am not alone in my sentiments. The Chron has alienated a significant portion of its potential readership and is, at least in part, reaping what it has sown.

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:18:56 +0000

Change is inevitable. Why are we so tied to paper anyways?

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 21 May 2007 19:57:51 +0000

To put things in perspective, the average profit margin for corporate America over last 25 years was approximately 8.3%

http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2006/03/01/the-profit-margin-paradigm.aspx

So, the point is, 20% is abnormally high, and no one should have ever expected it to be sustainable.

By: casualobserver

casualobserver — Mon, 21 May 2007 19:45:11 +0000

Chris, I didn’t know there were business mgmt classes offered at MGU……LOL!

I agree with your facts, though not necessarily your sentiments.

20% is being pushed on publicly held newspaper organizations as investors do not see the long term growth potential and are therefore demanding the higher RORs in order to recoup their investments over a shorter duration.

However, for the “family-owned” operations, they probably could well survive on 5%, however, those “families” show their true interest is the buck and not the product……and therefore, push their own mgmt to benchmark against the publicly held organizations. Certainly, the Hearst family doesn’t really need to get 20% out of The Chronicle in order to put food on the table.

By: AustinRoth

AustinRoth — Mon, 21 May 2007 19:39:22 +0000

Chris – which newspapers are the really profitable ones? And are they cutting staff (if they exist?)

By: Michael van der Galien

Michael van der Galien — Mon, 21 May 2007 18:15:20 +0000

Umh, dude, if youre profit margin fall from 20% to 5% you’ve got yourself a real problem.

By: All about News and Resources » Blog Archive » Anthony Kuhn, NPR Biography

Mon, 21 May 2007 18:07:11 +0000

[...] San Francisco Chronicle Will Cut Newsroom Jobs 25%The Moderate Voice – Coming on the heels of steep job cuts at the Los Angeles Times, and the sale of the Times , plus the sale of the legendary Knight-Ridder chain this spells yet more b-a-d n-e-w-s for the print media. The paper itself reports: To cut costs and try to [...]

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 21 May 2007 16:57:01 +0000

A sad part of the situation with newspaper staff reductions is that it’s totally unnecessary in a lot of the cases I’ve read about.

The newspaper business is still very profitable, it’s just that newspaper owners want to maintain a 20% profit margin instead of 5%.