As we suspected would be the case a couple weeks ago, the N&O and the Uptown paper of record are offering buyouts to nearly every employee. The N&O has offered buyouts to every member of its newsroom and presumably the Uptown paper has done the same.
Other unspecified cost cuts are in the works, however the easy cuts are gone. Bureaus have already been closed and consolidated across MNI’s Carolinas footprint. The other day I noticed a full-page ad for careerbuilder.com — still 14% owned by MNI for some unknown reason. Bet that brought in a lot of revenue. You are doing it wrong on both ends, folks.
Meanwhile, The Tampa Tribune is looking at a one-section weekday paper, a step closer to what I have said for months is the eventual move of a daily to non-daily status. Either someone, somewhere at McClatchy starts thinking outside the box or this outfit just bleeds to death.
Update: Sounds like the N&O is moving closer to the Tampa model. The paper plans to combine sections and drop about 10 pages a week in the process. Also notice the misplaced touting of increases in online readership. I wouldn’t point out that online traffic is up 47 percent over last year if I was struggling to increase online ad sales by 15 percent. Besides, as we’ve repeatedly said, online “ads” are an oxymoron. No one sees them.
