Despite Rate Hike, Paper Still Struggles

Late this afternoon the Twittersphere was buzzing about a new round of furloughs for all employees of The Capital.  According to one tweet,

The entire paper will be furloughed for five days in the first half of 2010.

Another tweet was slightly more humorous,

Help a journalist, buy a newspaper! The Capital is getting 5 unpaid furlough days in early 2010. Pls support good journalism!

Recently, The Capital has been struggling and was forced to lay off and furlough employees, outsource their printing to a company in Prince Georges County, and increase the prices of their daily and Sunday papers.  Certainly the recession and the economy

Not Alone

The Capital is not alone.  Papers across the nation are in dire straits and it is expected that The Washington Times will  cease operations in 2010.  According to a report in mediabistro.com today

Nothing is certain, but the projected layoffs are inching closer to 60 percent and the option of closing the paper within six months is starting to look like the most likely scenario

With the onslaught on “new media”, traditional media is playing a game of catch up. The days of being able to report news on a deadline are long gone and today’s news is instantaneous and transmitted by blogs, twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social networks.

Recently, we were speaking with an editor of a major New York paper about the advent of new media. From a 30 plus year newspaperman, the response was surprising.  “Among the things I have learned from you is that journalism has changed. You and the “new media” provide “traditional media”, the expertise to cover the “news”. You thus have become “main stream” and we have become a distributive tool – broadening your audience for content. The people in “new media” can be a reporter, lobbyist, interpreter, expert, congressional witness, advocate, propagandist, or perhaps all of the above.  Maybe it all comes down to integrity and credibility which you have by the caseload.”