LA Observed reports that Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein has made a deal to print the Wall Street Journal, which rents the Times' presses for its West Coast edition, later in the day than his own paper. That will push the deadlines for Times reporters several hours forward - possibly as early as 6 p.m. The result will be that some late-breaking news won't appear in the morning edition of the printed edition.
From LAO:
I've experienced these kinds of early deadlines due to crowded printing schedules and they are demoralizing.I'm hearing that the Times' off-the-composing-floor deadline of 11 p.m. (with updates until midnight) for the front news section will move earlier by several hours, perhaps to 6 p.m. This would be, I'm pretty sure, the earliest regular deadline in the paper's modern history — at a time when the pressure to be fresher and newsier is greater. It might also mean that the New York Times' deadline for getting breaking news from California onto its front page will be later than the hometown LAT's.
Under the Hartenstein plan, big news that happens late won't be on the front page or even in the A section — which, remember, is now also the LAT's only local news section. Late news will run in a new section-lite being called AA — and branded as LATExtra. For now, at least, Stanton is telling the newsroom that AA will usually run behind the front section, not wrapped around the front page. Stanton's sales pitch today to skeptical editors and reporters was that the trade-off would have been more layoffs.
*Update: Editors had to sign nondisclosure agreements, LAO reports.
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13 comments:
Especially demoralizing when they're imposed to make way for a competing paper's later deadline, merely because that paper is paying for the printing press.
Sounds very MediaNews like.
Does it matter anymore? I, for one, can't remember the last time I picked up a newspaper to read the news. Heck, I don't even like watching TV news, with their ill-advised "tonight at 11" hooks, among other sad practices. Online rules the world nowadays...
Does anyone think more layoffs wont happen? They can't shrink the expenses fast enough to keep up with the shrinking ad revenue. It is just a matter of time.
You need to do what you need to do to stay alive...in this case and over the past few years they are just postponing the execution date.
The honchos at this newspaper haven't got a clue.
Hey, 1:47 a.m., why are you reading a blog about the news media? Sounds like you aren't a big fan of what it produces.
p.s. "Online" news is largely produced by the "traditional" media. Get a fucking clue.
The priting of the Wall Street Journal underlines a sad reality - that all the money is still in printing newspapers. Not the blogs and the tweets and all the other noise on the LAT.com website.The LA Times website couldn't support more than a couple of dozen reporters and editors on its own - if that (the reality is most advertisers are there because of pass-through deals to get website placement at reduced cost or free for buying print ads). But the company keeps charging into that black hole, thinking that somehow, some way, the thing they don't understand will make money. They'll keep doing it until they go out of existence.
When you compete as a distant second you lose. That is what newspapers have been doing in the online world forever. They are not experts, have no innovation, won't spend money, and want to bundle everything. Their deal with Yahoo will fail for newspapers. The content may be produced by traditional media, but, that is far cheaper to get than what newspapers are competing, and losing, against.
Eddie,
Why not have a Tuesday deadline for Thursday, etc. That way you can rent out your presses and be totally non relevant to your rapidly diminishing readership and advertiser base. Did you hire a high priced consultant to come up with this brilliant move?
p.s. "Online" news is largely produced by the "traditional" media. Get a fucking clue.
This may be true now but it's only a matter of time. Traditional media will continue to shrink because traditional media business models do not work anymore. Online will continue to evolve into the vacuum and scoop up the remaining good value left in the debris.
You doltz make no sense. In one comment you say web advertising makes no money, in another, you say online will pick up what's left? So what is it? And, WTF is this "business model" crap? Stop using words you can't explain or jusdt heard from idiot honchos. Where the F u K is the new BUSINESS MODEL MESSIAH?!?!?!?!?!
The new business model will look like the banking and auto industries. Feds will buy partnership with taxpayer funds, in our case through tax breaks. In return, ownership will follow the emerging govt orthodoxy in coverage, offering the print version of social justice pablum. It's already happening, even without the tax breaks and whatever clever subsidies are cooked up.
Here's the real business model:
Close shop and tell everyone to go F themselves and work at Mcdonald's. Then outsource your reporting to Bangladesh or India and Whamo! You got cheap work and great generic news. Those doltz over in those countries could probably spell better than these sgvn reporters anyways.
There is no business model:
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201001/1812/
Good discussion in the comments.
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