Journalism, it seems, has entered the final stage of grief

Journalism's fifth stage of grief
By Dale Peskin/We Media
Denial and isolation. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. The five stages of grief are a healing process for those who suffer serious loss. Now come signs that journalists are easing their pain through the fifth stage, acceptance.

Writing a book? Don't expect a big advance cheque

Authors Feel Pinch in Age of E-Books
By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg/Wall Street Journal
When literary agent Sarah Yake shopped around Kirsten Kaschock's debut novel "Sleight" this year, she thought it would be a shoo-in with New York's top publishers.

Never consider a newspaper sold till the money is collected

Creditors To Buy Philly Papers—This Time For $105 Million
By Joseph Tartakoff/paidcontent
Bankrupt Philadelphia Media Holdings, which owns the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com, has been sold to a group of its senior lenders for the second time in six months. The same group of lenders agreed to pay $135 million for the company in April, but that deal never closed because of a dispute with one of the newspaper's unions.

No word play -- Blockbuster is reportedly going bust

Blockbuster Reportedly About To File For Bankruptcy

By Joseph Tartakoff/paidcontent
Blockbuster, which had warned for months that it might have to declare bankruptcy, is expected to file for Chapter 11 later this week or next, the Wall Street Journal says. The paper says that Blockbuster will likely close 500 to 800 stores. That's in addition to of the 960 stores Blockbuster announced it would close a year ago as part of what it called a "transformation" of its business.

As newspapers fold, a printing press maker cuts 500 jobs

Manroland Eliminating 500 Jobs, Consolidating Newspaper Press Manufacturing in Corporate Reorganization
By Mark Fitzgerald/Editor & Publisher

Chicago: Manroland AG, the world's second-biggest manufacturer of printing system, has announced a sweeping reorganization that includes consolidating manufacture of small and big newspaper press, and eliminating about 500 jobs.

More feedback on 'Wet prospects for print in Kerala -- literally'

Interesting to read your encounter with a newspaper 'boy' wetting through his job. They are not really unsung in Kerala. After all, the first new-wave movie in Malayalam was 'Newspaper Boy', made some 50 years ago.
N Muraleedharan

Miami Herald to eliminate 49 staff


(From PoynterOnline)
Miami Herald cuts 49 positions, announces new furloughs
Memos from the Herald's publisher and executive editor
From: Landsberg, David - Miami
Sept. 16, 2010
To all Herald employees:
Today we are announcing a plan to eliminate 49 staff positions across MHMC. The jobs will come from a combination of involuntary layoffs and reductions in certain work groups where employees will have the opportunity to voluntarily elect a severance package.

Cost-cutting: CNN divorces AP, After 30 years

CNN Will No Longer Use AP Content
By David Kaplan/paidcontent
After preparing for some time to rely only on its own resources, CNN will not use any photos, videos or newswire reports from the AP, as the cable news network said. Three years ago, CNN dropped Reuters following a 27-year relationship as way to cut costs. In a staff memo written by CNN President Jim Walton, cost containment was cited as a reason for severing ties with the AP to shift costs in support of

Feedback on 'Media Armageddon -- as K Balachandran sees it'

Lovely piece.
Mini Tejaswi
This one is quite class. And unadultrated angst!
Even good enough dirge to sent to those sad timers (NYtimes and Financial Times and other chronicles) in camaradarie.
Although I am sceptic if any poet now will 'make a living' out of poetry,

Affluent ones do not fancy magazines any more

dDon't miss the penultimate paragraph.
Joe
+++
Magazine Readership Off Sharply Among Affluent
By Jack Neff
BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- Magazine readership among the affluent plunged 16% in the past year as the group spent 12% more time using the internet

The Times circulation dips below 5,00,000

ABCs: The Times slips below 500,000 for first time in 16 years
News International flagship sinks towards pre-price war level in a grim month for the quality daily papers
By Steve Busfield/Guardian
The Times's circulation fell below 500,000 last month for the first time since April 1994, during its price war with the Daily Telegraph. All of the quality daily newspapers suffered

Imagine NYT dropping print. Now imagine it being real

This was brought to my notice by Cris Sita.
Joe
+++
Sulzberger Concedes: 'We Will Stop Printing the New York Times Sometime in Future'
By Henry Blodget/CEO, Business Insider
At a conference in London, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. conceded that someday the New York Times Company will be forced to stop publishing a printed paper. This sounds obvious,

Azim Premji Foundation to boost up Education--Forbes Magazine

Far away from the cut and thrust of running large corporate houses, there’s something that’s keeping Azim Premji and Sunil Mittal, among the most successful entrepreneurs in India, busy.

Three tears to journalism: UK lost 1/3 media jobs in 10 years


Research: UK Journalism Has Cut A Third Of Its Jobs In Last Decade

By Robert Andrews/paidcontent

The number of mainstream UK journalism jobs has shrunk by between 27 and 33 percent over the last decade to around 40,000, says University of Central

As Lucky's ad pages fall, editor is axed

The Editor of Lucky Magazine Is Replaced

By David Carr & Jeremy W Peters/NYT

Kim France, the editor who invented Lucky magazine in 2000 along with James Truman, the Conde Nast editorial director at the time, has been replaced

Print ads shrink, online ads climb -- That story stays

Newspaper Ad Spending Keeps On Falling—But More Slowly
By Joseph Tartakoff/paidcontent
Some relatively good news for the newspaper industry; total newspaper print and online ad spending dropped 5.55 percent last quarter, the smallest percentage drop

PLEASE DON'T USE (An Important Msg)

The whole thing below just came through. I'm not sure all these are true. Just couldn't verify. However, I thought I should share it here--for you to brood upon judiciously. Everything below is from an email, Not a word is mine: 

PLEASE FORWARD IT TO ALL WHOM YOU CARE.

10 Mistakes That Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make


Get Ahead
       Career Strategies from The Wall Street Journal

Why broadcast model for news may be a basket case

At ABC News After Westin, Risk and Opportunity


By Bill Carter/NYT

David Westin's resignation as president of ABC News represents, in the words of one long-time television news executive, "an inflection point" for an

Feedback on 'Wet prospects for print in Kerala'

Several friends responded to the mail on 'Wet prospects for print in Kerala -- literally'.
Thought they were worth sharing.
Here they are:

After decision to shed 400 staff, ABC News chief quits

Don't miss the last para.
Joe
+++

Chief of ABC News Is Resigning

By Bill Carter/NYT

David Westin, the longtime president of ABC News,

Channel 5 cost cutting: Big guns fall

Richard Desmond's staff cull claims big names at Channel 5

By Tara Conlan and Jason Deans/Guardian

Some of Channel 5's longest-serving staff are taking voluntary

Wet prospects for print in Kerala -- literally

From an industry viewpoint, I witnessed two poignant scenes this Monday morning in Thiruvananthapuram. Driving near Kesavadasapuram in pouring rain and darkness at around 5.30 am, I saw this newspaper `boy', aged around 50, doing his rounds on a bicycle with an umbrella in one hand and balancing the cycle with the other. To let my vehicle overtake, he courteously moved to the left and I could see that he had gone right into a gutter, owing to poor visibility. 

A few minutes later, near Pattom, I saw another newspaper boy, aged about 20, struggling to keep his packet of newspapers dry even as he himself was getting drenched despite the cover of an umbrella.

The two belong to a dwindling number of unsung heroes holding up the crumbling edifice of print in Kerala, which is facing the threat of being undone for want of newspaper boys. This is a state where labour cannot be got for love or money for plumbing, wiring, digging, household work, or what have you. A surprise indeed that there are these few who are still willing to do a job that involves waking up at unearthly hours, offers hardly any off-days and pays a pittance. Their frail and wet -- but serving -- hands hold the destiny of many media persons and their families.

Deseret News to disband 43% of staff

Deseret News Tries A Controlled Burn To Save Itself
 
By Staci D Kramer/paidcontent
 
Last week, one of the nation's top dailies imploded its structure to go "digital first." Today, the Deseret News, a much smaller paper in Salt Lake City, Utah, is following USA Today with an equally radical reorganization but very different emphasis—keeping the daily newspaper alive. The DN is slashing its staff levels by 43 percent and merging newsrooms with sibling KSL TV and Radio; both are owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints's Deseret Management. That company's head is no stranger to trying to shake up newsrooms: Mark Willes, the former controversial publisher of the Los Angeles Times.

Unlike USAT, where the emphasis is on changing from a print-centric organization, Deseret News CEO Clark Gilbert missed just about every opportunity to show his new organization in a cross-platform light. Also unlike the Gannett flagship, the publisher and editor are leaving amidst the shakeup.

For instance, despite the 43 percent staff cuts (57 full-time, 28 part-time) Gilbert claims the newly combined newsroom will be the area's largest—but doesn't mention being better positioned to serve readers with breaking news or the usual bits we hear as justification for digital-age shakeups. The creation of Deseret Connect—essentially a freelance network—mentions writers and editors but not connecting local blogs or the like. All we know about digital's role is this has to be done because technology advances are killing papers—and the new digital team is "cutting edge."

The changes in content emphasis for in-depth coverage focus on values that Gilbert says fit the marketplace and are in keeping for a company owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: the family; financial responsibility; excellence in education; care for the needy; values in the media; and faith in the community. Playing down the digital-mobile emphasis in many newsrooms making changes may also reflect the marketplace, or the perception that their readers care more about the steady influence of a print paper than apps and sites.

The main reason is likely the way Willes set up the companies after his arrival in spring 2009, transforming them into "real" businesses and separating out the digital operations into a new company, Deseret Digital Media, with the notion that dividing the operations as the best way to succeed. He brought in Gilbert this past May to run the paper and the digital operations this May, signaling the end of the current leadership. The result sounds like a disconnect between the two goals, a continuing daily paper and a successful digital media business.

How Saudi Arabia's print biz has remained stunted

Senior journalist Ashraf Padanna brings up two news items from Arab News, one from 2003 and the other from 2009, to highlight the pathos of the English newspaper scenario in Saudi Arabia.

At bookstores -- Revenue hemorrhage

Borders sees sharp fall in revenue

Borders book retail chain suffers sales fall
By David Teather/Guardian
The continuing woes of the book industry were underscored