The L.A. Times has fired or laid off, or in some cases “retired” many of their best reporters this year. And things just got worse. The Time’s parent company, the Tribune Co., which also owns KTLA Channel 5 and dozens of other daily newspapers and television stations across the country, “filed Monday for bankruptcy protection from creditors, in the latest indication of deteriorating economics for the news business,” according to the L.A. Times.
The reason given for the bankruptcy filing is that the owner of the Tribune Company, Chicago real estate entrepreneur Sam Zell (pictured above), borrowed $12 billion in order to buy the company. And he is a real estate guy, so you know he is hurting as we struggle through the Bush Depression.
I wonder how much longer we will be able to enjoy real newspapers, in print? Five years perhaps? By the time my kids finish college newspapers will be fully digital, and my guess is that we will read them on our phones and other hand held devices. Life will go on, but it just won’t be the same.
I worked at the O.C. Register several times when I was younger. I was a graphic design assistant. I also worked in their production department and I sold advertising for them. I was very good at that, but thank God I moved on to other things. Advertising salespeople at newspapers are on the extinction list now. As are most of their peers. So sad.
I get the Register daily and both the Register and the L.A. Times on Sundays. I love reading them both. The Times in particular is just so well written. Too bad they don’t do a better job of covering Orange County. A merger of the L.A. Times and the O.C. Register would make a lot of sense…
Art, I wrote about a possible alternative to the demise of The Times, at least in my area, in my blog today. I’m trying to figure out how tying two sinking ships together (The Times and Register) accomplishes anything except the added mass will cause them to sink more quickly. I, too, bemoan the probable loss of a regular print news source. I read the Register and Times (with our Daily Pilot) every day, as well as the Wall Street Journal – the best-written of the bunch. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to get comfortable with my laptop in the john!
Art –
WSJ’s Heard it on the Street column lights a spark about the LA Times and Register merging w/Dean Singleton’s Media News Group.
The loss of investigative reporting is very sad for a democracy.
I figured that photo of Zell was taken as he was attempting to recruit Steven Greenhut to the Times. Fair pay for a fair day’s work.