Tidbits on the news and publishing business from the past week:
Life after layoffs – The Los Angeles Times announced last week it is cutting 150 newsroom jobs. It didn’t take long for lists of who’s leaving to appear on news industry blogs, including Tell Zell, and Ricochet, Chrys Wu’s blog for online news practitioners. Instead of just listing names, Wu is chronicling where former Times writers and editors are landing, showing that there is indeed life after a layoff. Read the list or add to it here.
Magazine markets – Each year, the staff at the Chicago Tribune compiles a list of their top 50 favorite consumer magazines. The 2008 compilation, printed in its entirety here, is an eclectic list that includes elder statesmen of the magazine business like The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated and Gourmet, as well as newer, and in some cases more obscure, publications such as Cookie, Modern Drunkard and The Believer. The list should make interesting reading for any freelance writer looking to expand the universe of magazine markets they normally pitch.
Newspaper analysts dwindle – Another fallout of declining newspaper company stocks – the number of analysts covering the publishing business. According to this Associated Press story, “Two years ago, investors could get research from more than a dozen analysts. Now, they are lucky to find half that number.” Could the time be right for former newspaper business reporters or editors to step in? According to the AP story, some already have, including Alan D. Mutter, a one-time newspaper editor turned Silicon Valley new media executive who blogs at Reflections of a Newsosaur.
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Contrary to the assertion in the last sentence of the post, I am not a laid-off newspaper reporter. I left the business under my own power in 1988.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I’ve made the correction.
Michelle Rafter