Gerard Barberi's List: Journalism

• The Times has developed and launched a number of innovative products, including the Times People social network, Times Machine, an iPhone Times reader, the Times Developer Network, the Visualization Lab and two APIs.

  • not very innovative

• The list of potential expense reductions includes squeezing staffing, shuttering bureaus, carving out layers of middle management, telescoping multiple sections of the paper into one, tightening newshole, scrapping syndicated features and wire serevices, axing op-ed pages and book sections and eliminating classified ads on certain days of the week.
• Another alternative will be to ask employees to accept voluntary pay cuts, to agree to work longer hours, and to ease manning requirements and other work rules. Bonuses may be reduced or eliminated for the fortunate few who still would have qualified for them.
• If the economy deteriorates too far too fast, partnerships of convenience may give way to outright mergers in markets shared by multiple newspapers.
• This will last as long as the newspapers continue to generate operating profits. But it is highly unlikely in this environment that any creditor would provide additional cash to prop up a money-losing newspaper.
  
• In other words, a newspaper that cannot sell enough advertising or cut enough expenses to sustain profitable operations is not likley to make it to the other side of 2009.

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