Chronicle owner Hearst asks papers to cut costs by 20%

Advertising losses blamed

Wendy Natt, Apr 03, 09.

The Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, and other papers owned by parent company Hearst Corp. will be facing 20 percent cuts in cost this year, according to a recent Bloomberg report. Steve Swartz, president of the newspaper division at Hearst, said that the cuts are necessary due to sharp reductions in print advertising sales, and that the industry is “largely overstaffed,” says the Bloomberg article.

The Houston Business Journal also reported on the story, calling attention to the most recent layoffs at the Houston Chronicle, which has let go of more than 300 employees since late 2007.

Hearst closed printing operations at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer earlier this year, retaining only a limited online publication, and has said it will close or sell the San Francisco Chronicle unless the paper cuts at least 150 jobs, reports the Houston Business Journal.

Comments

Jo Collier said:

The news rooms are not overstaffed. The papers are run to benefit the stockholders and not the greater good.

The Hearst corporation and others have long been ignoring the call for a reorganization of their business model and run themselved into the ground by turning out a bad product.

The paper is financially beholden to advertisers, not readers. If they ran a good paper, with real reporting, the advertising would come to them.

I guess the city’s oh so well thought out newsrack ordinance didn’t help the Chronicle after all.
http://www.houstontribune.com/ordinance.html

Posted on Apr 07, 09 at 9:21 am

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said:

Hearst needs to rethink this decision. Houstonians read and need the Chronicle for good local issue reporting, which means the Chronicle needs good local reporters. Cutting experienced reporting staff is the quickest road to killing the Chronicle. Memo to Hearst: We can go to national newspapers for national news—your advantage here and the future of your market is great coverage of local and state news.

Posted on Apr 07, 09 at 1:02 pm

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