ote the Star-Ledger is owned by the parent company that owns The Oregonian.)The Star-Ledger announces large-scale buyout
The Star-Ledger Thursday July 31, 2008, 11:16 AM
The Star-Ledger today announced a large-scale buyout to all non-union workers with the goal of reducing the staff by at least 200 employees.
Publisher George E. Arwady said if 200 employees don't agree to the buyout and if the paper cannot reach agreements with unions representing drivers and mailers meant to reduce costs, the paper will be sold. He said the deadline for reaching both of those targets was Oct. 1.
The offer comes at a time when the newspaper industry is reeling from plunging advertising revenues linked to a troubled economy and sea changes in the way information is disseminated.
The offer was announced to grim-faced employees by Arwady at the paper's headquarters in Newark. He characterized the paper as being "on life support" and urged employees to consider the offer for the good of fellow employees.
"This is a matter of simple survival," he said.
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I was thinking about this again this morning.
Last week I was telling my kids — that this year was a year that would be recorded in the history books, somewhat like 1492 or 1776.
It was a year when America stopped manufacturing Hummers and other large cars.
It was the first time since the '80s that driving dropped.
Airlines began a long string of cost cutting measures.
Food prices shot up and all combined to an historic change in the nature and culture of America.
For the first time since the French historian DeTocville summed up the American character at the beginning of the 1800s — More — that the future of America is less.
Likewise with news it is the beginning of the end of an era.
At the turn of the 20th century, huge, huge fortunes were built by Hearst and others with the profit power of newspapers. William Hearst made so much money from his newspapers, he purchased castles in Eurupe, had them dismantled and rebuilt in California.
http://www.hearstcastle.com/history/index.asp
Now the business model for newspapers has disolved.
There is a Bob Dylan song here somewhere:
The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast
The slow one will later be fast
And the present now will soon be the past
The order is rapidly fading
The first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a changing
