Judging from the most recent employee update, the company is planning to keep the reporting staff bare-boned. “We’re also looking at freezing some positions as they become open through natural attrition,” John Armstrong wrote in his regular e-mail missive. Then I read that MediaNews just signed a deal with Topix.com, that handles the online forums and comments sections people use to discuss articles they read in the papers. The bottom line, spelled out by the Topix folks, is that the deal is a way to stretch copy and reporters further.
In my humble opinion, that sucks. The way it works is that the two companies would share revenue from advertisements on the comment and forum pages. It’s a win-win for them: it creates more readers because comments posted in response to a Raiders article in The Oakland Tribune (just for example – the partnership only applies to two papers right now but the rollout would be complete in 2008) would show up on the BANG Web sites AND on forums on Topix.
What bothers me is that they are trying every way possible - except making the papers better - to hold up the teetering, debt-sustained empire.
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