Comments on: Mercury News laying off about quarter of newsroom?

By: Bria

Bria — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 23:18:11 +0000

hi nice post, i enjoyed it

By: Slartibardfast

Slartibardfast — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 08:24:55 +0000

Sad news. I have enjoyed home delivery of the Merc for years but recently it seems like there’s been a lot more ads and a lot less quality journalism. It’s as if the paper has become wholly sponsored by Frys and Macy’s with their multiple full page ads and wrap-around advertising of the various sections of the paper.

Now that I hear this layoff news, I sadly will have to cancel my subscription because it simply wont be worth it any more to keep subscribing when they are cutting back on quality. I had been hoping they would hang in there and somehoe manage to turn it around.

The above (non-crack-smoking) poster does not seem to understand that web content producers will, increasingly, in fact put more and more time money and resources into investigative reporting, simply because they are starting to make more money (through online advertising) and they can operate more affordably while the print media make dumb moves like this one from the Mercury News and subsrcibers like me move wholly the web because the paper completely sucks. I wish it wasn’t so.

By: C

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 18:13:13 +0000

Put down the crackpipe MarkG.

There will be editorial positions at papers because web content prodcers don’t put the time & resources into investigative reporting, simply cause the economics don’t warrant it. newpapers will just have to find a way to make money w/ the overhead they need to put out a decent product, i.e switching to tabloid vs. broadsheet, smaller pagecounts, etc.

By: Tracy Allison ALtman

Tracy Allison ALtman — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 19:13:25 +0000

I hate hearing this. The Merc is a must-read for me, always doing a great job covering business, arts, life in the Valley. I don’t see a replacement for their stories — topic-specific blogs are OK for certain types of info, but we need their “voice”. (And please, don’t let them do away with Mr. Roadshow!)

By: Pran Kurup

Pran Kurup — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 19:05:05 +0000

Sad to hear. Clearly a sign of changing times, driven largely by the net. Interestingly, there was an article about how the newspaper business (print) in India is booming.

http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-newspaper18may18,1,3737152,full.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business

By: markg

markg — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 03:04:59 +0000

fast forward 3 years…there will be no editorial positions at newspapers, they will simply harvest and pay for best web content they can find