Tuesday 9 September 2008

Sulzberger's memo to New York Times staff.

Question: when something big happens at the New York Times, and Keller and others send out memos, do they go to their employees at their global edition HQ in Paris and elsewhere?

I don't know - if you work for the IHT and don't get these memos, do let me know. Normal rules of confidentiality apply.

In case you missed it, here is Sulzberger's memo to NYT staff further to announcements late last Friday to combine its Metro and Sports sections into section A and Business Day, respectively, in Metropolitan editions, from the 6th October, 2008. The move is an attempt to save money by increasing the number of single print runs at the Queens printing facility.



To the Staff:

Given the business challenges we face, we are constantly looking for ways to reduce costs that do not affect the quality or quantity of the journalism we provide to our readers. Next month you will see one such way in the metropolitan edition of The Times.
Beginning Monday, Oct. 6, we will introduce a new layout of the paper by consolidating some sections. Metro will be integrated into the Main News section Monday through Saturday. Business and Sports will be combined into one section Tuesday through Friday. There will be no loss of content for readers. In fact, there will be some advantages -- a freestanding Saturday Arts section and a return to later deadlines for Business news on Monday -- and we are working to create later deadlines for culture coverage. The cost savings, which are significant, will come from the production savings of having a single run on more nights than we do today.
We are not reducing the space devoted to Metro or Sports news. This is simply a way to produce the paper more efficiently. These changes will affect the New York edition only, as the national edition is already configured in a similar fashion.
That said, we don’t make these changes lightly. We care deeply about what our New York readers think about their edition. We know that many of our readers like and are comfortable with our current layout. But after a good amount of reader research and exploring various options, we feel this is an effective way to reduce expenses while providing our readers with the breadth and depth of high-quality coverage they expect from us and we are committed to giving them.
Arthur
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
NYT

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't give them their own section?
And all to save a mere $5 - $6 million dollars (these figures are always produced by the business side and should be automatically reduced by 25-50% depending on who told them to you).

To this poster above - It seems the buisness side employee have taken the greatest share of the hits and cuts though buyouts and closed B-units, out-sourced to India and sparing you unpleasantness you could never bear. Maybe the creative (Ha) side need just a little bit more angst to be more successful - maybe cut 200 more writers so that the remaining ones are more productive?

Outsource editing to Mumbai writers - they do superb work for the B-side you know. After Jason was found to call in stories from Iraq from W44 St, saloon, the public voted by passing up a the newstand in the AM.