One of the great daily newspapers, the Philadelphia Inquirer, has become the latest big-city old paper to lay off news staff. The Inquirer will trim about 20 percent of its news staff as it reinvents itself as “a local and regional publication with a growing online presence anchored by a redesigned Web site.”
The Inquirer’s resident blogger, Dan Rubin (whom I met last fall at the CASE conference in Philadelphia), describes the somber mood in the newsroom.
Staff meetings are scheduled for this afternoon. I’m guessing we’ll talk about individual sacrifice, the needs of the group. The paper will take a look, again, at what it needs to do in this crushing time, and many people will be asked to change jobs, to fill in the many holes. (Update: Editor Bill Marimow described this as “the worst day in the history of the Philadelphia Inquirer.”)
I’ve said to a couple of glum-looking people today that there’s part of me that’s envious. I know it sounds hollow, coming from someone who has seniority. But this will be saving some people from heartache later, when it’s harder to pull up stakes. This is a good time to be looking for other ways to use those peculiar skills they put to work here.
I told a young writer who was wondering how she’d manage that the amazing thing is, I’ve never run into anyone who left the newspaper who didn’t look younger and healthier the next time I saw them.
A harbinger of things to come for old media?
Related: Will the old media survive?
Andy writes! 