Jan 7, 2010

L.A. Times shutters Orange County plant, shrinks in size

In a continuing effort to cut costs, the Los Angeles Times today announced that it will close its printing plant in Orange County and consolidate operations at its press facility in downtown L.A. The 80 press workers at the OC plant will be fired.

The consolidation plan will lead to earlier press deadlines. As a result, the newspaper will create a new section to capture late-breaking news. From the story:
To accommodate earlier deadlines necessitated by the elimination of the plant, the paper will launch a new section dubbed LATExtra to run late-breaking news that was previously published in individual sections. LATExtra will appear Monday through Saturday, beginning Feb. 2, according to the memo.

The changes "give us the opportunity to expand and further showcase the terrific enterprise reporting of this newsroom, as well as produce the first new news section in many, many years," Times Editor Russ Stanton said in a memo to the newsroom.
The Times also plans to eliminate the stand-alone business section on Mondays, move the food section to Thursdays, and will cut the width of the newspaper to 44 inches, down from 48 inches.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Times "leadership" needs a drug test.

Why don't they shrink the size of the web width to 42 inches, or 40 inches? Better yet, charge subscribers for not receiving a paper, increase the ad rates and increase margins?

Shortly they will outsource printing to La Opinion and fire the rest of the press crews.

That outstanding enterprise reporting will certainly flourish with the later deadline. They will now be able to report late breaking news only a few hours later than their online competition.

What a sad end to a great institution.

Hang your head in shame Zell and cronies.

Anonymous said...

Hey don't feel so bad 7:27, if all the LANG papers can do it -- so can the Times!

... Breaking News? What's "Breaking News"?

Anonymous said...

Just comparing Lang with the Times makes me shudder.