The year is only two weeks old, but it is already carnage out there in the US newspaper industry as two more papers face closure and Gannett takes unheard of steps to ward off more job cuts.
It beggars belief that so much bad news could come in a week, but the industry has managed it without any difficulty whatsoever. The week started off with speculation about the very existence of the New York Times - as commentators asked could the Old Grey Lady go under? It seems like a distant possibility, but as the clouds of doom continue to coalesce it is maybe not so far fetched as first imagined.
Yesterday, was the deadline for bids on the The Rocky Mountain News. If there are no sufficient bids then that paper, with 230 staff could close, or go online only. It is the second time this week that the prospect of a daily US newspaper going online only has been raised.
On Monday, Hearst Corporation said that a digital-only future is one option being examined as it weighs up the future of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. Those two papers could find themselves following in the footsteps of the Christian Science Monitor, which said in October it was to scrap the daily print issue of its newspaper and focus on running its website.
An online only future for a newspaper sounds stark, but really is it so bad? Well the immediate answer on one level is yes as many thousands would lose their jobs and a way of life - of print - would come to an end. Newspapers are about more than producing and publishing content. And it is a sad loss when any major newspaper disappears.
The bad news has not ended there this week. Also yesterday the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, another daily, filed for bankruptcy protection after the paper's owners failed to win a series of concessions on wages with unions. That paper is owned by private equity firm Avista Capital. Pity any newspaper firm owned by private equity. It doesn't bode well for the paper of record for the Twin Cities.
The story of the the Star Tribune of Minneapolis seems to echo on a smaller scale the immense financial problems of Los Angeles Times-owner Tribune, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December after real estate magnate Sam Zell bought it in an $8.2bn buy-out last year.
If these busy busy two weeks are anything to go by it is going to be a very bumpy ride this year as witnessed further yesterday by USA Today owner Gannett's unprecedented decision to force thousands of its staff to take unpaid leave. Gannett has said this will affect most of its 31,000 staff.
Gannett says the move is keep more job cuts at bay, but this is a firm that has cut around 6,000 jobs in the last two years. It cut 3,500 jobs in 2007 alone way before things got bad.
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It is a shame, and you feel for those who will loose a livelihood - but FFS when I read in the Press Gazette an article by a director of a large regional press calling on-line advertising a 'passing fad' you have to wonder....
A community newspaper in the Northwest is hardly the same thing as a daily in the US.
Still - Like broadcasters - bloated, stuck, top heavy, over engineered, tunnel vision, dying - industry needs a kit up the *** - FACT
Gordon Macmillan
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