Troubled San Francisco paper in danger of closing
Tuesday February 24, 6:16 pm ET
San Francisco Chronicle to be sold or closed if owner can't lower expenses dramatically
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The owner of the San Francisco Chronicle will sell or close the daily newspaper if it can't dramatically lower expenses within the next few months.
The Hearst Corp., which owns northern California's largest daily newspaper, didn't specify a savings target in Tuesday's grim announcement. But the New York-based company said the cost cutting will require significant layoffs.
After years of struggles, the San Francisco newspaper's troubles have worsened amid the longest recession since the early 1980s. Hearst said the Chronicle lost $50 million last year and is hemorrhaging even more money so far this year.
Several other struggling newspapers around the country are also on the sales block, have filed for bankruptcy or are facing a possible shutdown.
6 comments:
I am hearing rumors that the Chron is going to go to three days.
I heard the Fangs want to buy it.
Seriously, I was watching some tech hauncho who started Netscape talking on Charlie Rose and he said that if he were Rupert Murdoch he'd stop printing newspapers tomorrow- the investors, according to this guy, are already there for a strictly online presence. One could argue it's only tradition, romanticism, and comfort keeping papers alive.
he is right. To be fair the Comical is facing the same problems all print newspapers are facing. That advertising model just doesn't work for print anymore. That said, the Comical is evidently one of the worst run papers in America. They lost $50M last year alone!
At the risk of sounding like a cliché, this could be a positive thing. With a new business model and much lower cost structure, the Chronical could be a strictly digital affair with a larger audience AND better content.
And Mark Morford will lose his job!
Do you think Joel Selvin will make the cut? Will the high tech investors value his odes to the Avalon Ballroom and Quick Silver Messenger Service?
Just drove past 5th and Mission. There are all sorts of local TV trucks parked out front. There was an article about the Comical in the WSJ this AM, too.
Don't know how I should feel actually. Part of me says good fucking riddance and let something better take its place. Another part felt sad for the people walking out of work and seeing the TV crews there and surely knowing that the end is near.
Ironically, many of the local TV affiliates are going broke as well. The owner of KRON channel 4 filed for bankrupcy a few weeks back.
My colleague's daughter works at the Chron, and she's broken up- she's had offers from hospitals (she works in health and technology) for far more pay, but she digs the reporter's grind. Hell, I should have been a reporter, if I hadn't bailed on grad school and ran off to Vegas. They are my kind of people. I have no idea what this will mean for the quality of in-depth reporting (yes, I'm well aware that the Chron did little of this the past ten years, steroids excepted). TV journalism is limited by time and major corporate sponsors, and bloggers are not journalists.
Guess it's a transition period. Wonder where we'll end up.
By the way, if you haven't heard, the last beer writer in the Bay Area, Bill Brand, was struck and killed by a train in SF after a tasting event. He was 70.
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