Newsrooms vs. Newspaper Companies

Mark Bernstein argues that newspapers aren’t overstaffed:

The heavy staffing of traditional newspapers was not the fault of management bureaucracy. It was the fault of technology and distribution.

But he’s talking about the newsrooms. The vast number of reporters and editors and support staff focusing on producing the actual content of the papers. And of course there are a lot of them, and the operation looks unnecessarily large compared to a web-only publication, because a newspaper is a hell of a thing to have to fill up with content 365 days a year.

I’m saying that for however many people there are working in a newspaper newsroom, there are several times more people working for the company in non-editorial positions. The size of the newsroom staff is the least of their problems.

★ Tuesday, 21 July 2009