In from the cold

Blogger and Los Angeles Times pressman Ed Padgett says his suspension at the paper will be lifted at 4 p.m. today and that he will meet with management tomorrow to "discuss or clarify what content can be published online."

Padgett was suspended Tuesday over posts he made after a production problem that led to delays in the delivery of Friday's newspaper.

LA Times suspends pressman blogger

Los Angeles Times pressman Ed Padgett says his bosses suspended him for blogging about last Thursday's production problems that led to delivery problems Friday morning.

Padgett, who posts at the Los Angeles Times Pressmens 20 Year Club, said the suspension could lead to termination, pending the outcome of an internal investigation:

I was told I had been warned in the past regarding my blogging, but I was only warned about broadcasting circulation numbers and nothing else. 

So much for first amendment rights.

Padgett posts included the news that the Times had to restart its Orange County printing presses after having shuttered the facility days before and the rising temperatures inside the Olympic plant. (The warning he refers to came last June when he reported that the paper's circulation had fallen below one million.)

Padgett also called for unspecified changes at Times in response to the production problems, which might be the post that got him into hot water. Here's part of what he said:

I’m not certain how many subscribers have fled the Los Angeles Times over the fiasco yesterday, but the numbers will be revealed to the pressmen shortly as the amount of newspapers produced daily will most definitely decline deeply. ...


The public relations damage at the Los Angeles Times was great, with thousand’s of dollars in rebates to the advertisers for newspapers not delivered to our readers. We have a few anchors here at the LA Times that need to be jettisoned overboard, and quickly.

What's up with the Times' OC printing plant?

Some of the press workers at the Los Angeles Times think the paper will shutter its Orange County printing plant in the coming months. A report on Ed Padgett's blog has fueled the speculation, which seems to be based largely on insider rumor. I'll update if I see anything concrete one way or the other.

Four in the morning

1. Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, is looking to diversify its advertising dollar with Tribune Hispanic. Ed Padgett

2. The Los Angeles Times has hired Jack Dolan of the Miami Herald to beef up its database journalism in Sacramento. LAO

3. Newspapers' silver lining rides on a big gray cloud. Alan Mutter

4. Are we all becoming pawns on a vast digital chessboard? Newsweek

Four in the afternoon

1. An affair to remember: Common Cause has filed a complaint with the state's ethics commission against the lobbyist who allegedly engaged in an extramarital affairs with former Republican Assemblyman Mike Duvall. SacBee

2. Bankrupt: The 5,000 carries who deliver the Orange County Register will not get the $22 million the paper set aside to settle a lawsuit. Instead, the paper has wrapped the money into its list of assets as part of its bankruptcy filing. OC Register

3. In the red zone: The California Senate could pass a bill as early as today that would exempt the proposed NFL stadium in the city of Industry from environmental regulations and thereby eliminate a citizen lawsuit to block the project. PSN

4. Skinny paper: The Los Angeles Times loses an inch. ChiTrib ... LA Times pressman and blogger Ed Padgett had this story last month.

Trimming paper to trim costs

Ed Padgett at the LA Times Pressmens' blog reported yesterday that the Los Angeles Times will once again trim the width of the paper to cut costs:

As the Los Angeles Times continues to seek ways to remain in the black the newspaper will trim an additional four inches from the width of the newspaper. Readers will note a one-inch reduction in the width of the newspaper immediately, which will save the newspaper millions of dollars from the expense of producing the newspaper in saved newsprint costs.

Any further reduction in newsprint width down the road may result in the Los Angeles Times reverting to the tabloid format.

Late afternoon rumor patrol

Will the bankrupt Orange County Register sell its headquarters in Santa Ana and move into the offices that housed the bankrupt LA Times' OC edition? I don't know, but the OC Weekly had heard enough talk that it decided to write a story about the rumors.

Also, an anonymous comment on this blog said pink slips were going out at the Los Angeles Times. I haven't confirmed any layoffs, but pressman Ed Padgett says he's heard that at least four press workers at the Times OC facility have been let go.

Times' Sunday circulation drops below one million

Ed Padgett at the LA Times Pressmens' blog reports that the Sunday circulation of the Los Angeles Times dropped below one million last Sunday for the first time in his memory. Padgett writes:

My career at the Los Angeles Times began on August 3, 1972, and the Sunday circulation of our newspaper always surpassed the million mark my entire career. This unfortunately changed on Sunday June 7, 2009 when circulation eased below one million copies.

Here’s a headline from the Los Angeles Times Media Center: 1961 Sunday circulation breaks the one-million mark several times during the year.

Eddy Hartenstein was brought on board as publisher of the Los Angeles Times on August 18th, 2008 to stem the bleeding at the newspaper. Just like his three Tribune Company predecessors, the blood flow has not stopped or even slowed.

With circulation and advertising descending on a daily basis at the Los Angeles Times will our publisher resort to cutting expenses by reducing the size of the workforce to increase revenue, one more time?

On Sunday, June 7th, 2009 the Los Angeles Times distributed 584,310 West edition newspapers, 404,352 East Edition newspapers, for a total distribution of 988,662 Sunday newspapers.

Four in the evening

1. Los Angeles Times employees got a scare Monday when they arrived at work and found their ID cards wouldn't get them into the building. From Ed Padgett's Pressmens blog:

Why would employees think they had been let go you ask? Last year two employees were not notified of their job loss until they arrived at the newspaper. When their I.D. cards did not work, security gave them the bad news that they had lost their jobs.

(h/t fishbowlLA)

2. USA Today is the latest to offer subscribers an electronic edition of the printed newspaper. LANG launched theirs earlier this week.

3. What an emotional world. Clay Shirky says our penchant for instant news updates to be rebroadcast over social media sites "favors excitement over objectivity."

4. A study finds that newspapers salaries rose 2.1 percent between 2008 and 2009. Experienced reporters saw a 2 percent increase and interactive producers saw gains of 13 to 14 percent. It's not clear whether eliminating jobs might have boosted the averages.

Padgett chronicles layoffs in Times' press room

Ed Padget at the Los Angeles Times Pressmens' 20 Year Club blog has been chronicling the layoffs of press workers over the last few days. The Times announced Wednesday that 63 pressmen (and women) will get pink slips.

Padgett also notes that pressman Michael Reyes has died.

Times to cut press workers

The pressmen's union at the Los Angeles Times learned today that 63 of its 244 members will be laid off in another round of cuts at the embattled newspaper. LA Observed provides some additional context here.

Stop the press talk

Back on Dec. 5 I'd mentioned that several newspapers, including some in the LANG chain, were rumored to be in discussions with the Tribune Co. to have their papers printed at the Los Angeles Times printing press. Several people inside LANG have asked for updates on the talks, hoping that any savings made on the production side might preclude further newsroom cuts. But long-time Times pressman Ed Padgett says Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy filing probably put an end to the plan:

The men and women in Operations at the newspapers had one last hope before the ax fell, producing other newspapers within the walls of the Los Angeles Times, that hope quickly dissipated with the Tribune Company filing bankruptcy on December 8th, 2008.

The plan had the Los Angeles Times signing contracts to produce The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s after the union contract was signed, which all changed after the bankruptcy filing. The bankruptcy court allowed the Chicago Tribune to produce the Wall Street Journal, which gave everyone hope we too would be granted the same permission.

Other newspapers knocking on the door of the Los Angeles Times were the Korean Times, The New York Times, The Orange County Register, and the Dean Singleton newspapers such as the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Padgett goes on to say that the Times might outsource its own production to Transcontinental, "a Canadian Company that will soon take over all production from the San Francisco Chronicle in May of this year."