This Blog Post Alone Will Destroy Entire Networks of Community Weeklies

Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune laid people off in part, we're told, because of the Interwebs and the destruction they hath wrought in printworld:

"The Chicago Tribune today reduced its newsroom staff, a response to the economic downturn and changes in the media business model."

Today, we discover:

According to the motion, Tribune Co.’s publishing division generated $461 million in operating cash flow last year, a margin of 16.7 percent “during one of the worst years in newspaper advertising history.”

A brief show of hands, please, from the business-minded among us: Who here reading would be pleased to get a 16.7 percent profit margin from his company today?

I thought so. If anyone needs me, I'll be over here sharpening my knives for another day of killing.

A.

Comments

[pansypoo]

do they ever just fire a CEO with no parachute? no severance? no nothing?

[whet moser]

If you'd like a bit more to rage about, ChiTrib spiked Lou Carlozo's last post, even though it's as Stockholm Syndromy as anything I've read: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2009/04/update_final_suppressed_recess.html

[Interrobang]

*sigh* Our financial guys projected about that much growth for Q1 this year (came in short, but not by all that much) and when the report came out, there was much rejoicing in Ye Olde Office.

Considering that a lot of our clients are in an industry where the margins are so tight they're pleased to get 3% profit, the ChiTrib people need a little damn perspective.

[whet moser]

I suspect they have perspective - it's just that with the debt, they're fucked. That's what pissed me off about Rosenthal's lede. Changes in media my ass, all these people are getting laid off because of a stupid business decision.

[Athenae]

whet, Jesus, that's ... I think the worst thing I've ever read, on about 100 levels, not the least of which is that they spiked it. "I admire Sam Zell ..." Yeah, me too, if only because in five years' time (when print journalism will most likely be looking back on this period of flailing and nonsense and feeling really foolish, like it had a one-night stand with its own stupidity) Sam Zell will be doing just fine. I admire that, in the way you admire a school of pirahnas devouring a water buffalo: Warily, and from a safe distance.

A.

[Michael]

I work for a start-up, and you know what kind of profit margin we'd be happy with?

Just having one at all, thank you very much.

[Interrobang]

There's a lot of that "mis-lede-ing" sort of stuff going around lately. Ick. I just used my blag to rip some skin off someone at Reuters for doing that in a way that is severely not pretty.

Michael -- My other company is a start-up and we're still not really profitable, a couple years in. At this point, my involvement amounts to a hobby...