Interesting article.

Like Jack, I also remember days when papers relied more heavily on wire service reporters, the TV section was a 4X5 inch panel and news staffs were lean and hungry. My memories of those days was that the papers I read contained sound reporting of fact in a clearly stated, well composed manner with less editorial content off of the op/ed page. I guess I'm trying to say that today's newsrooms appear to be fatter and perhaps less eager to produce than in days past. In a time of excess, that may be fine. In times where reduct on becomes mandatory for survival, it helps to be a performer.

I find it difficult to know that I exist in a world of manufacturing operations where head count reduction is an everyday fact of business life and be asked to drum up sympathy for writers and reporters who are forced to deal with declining employment opportunities because of head count reduction efforts by management.

In a simplified look at the cost of doing business, we have product cost, which is made up of raw materials and manufacturing costs, which include labor and whatever fixed and variable overhead the company can justify. In most business, the pressure to improve profit through a reduction in manufacturing cost is heavy.

Let's get it out of the way, so that we can go forward. Everyone hates the bean counter when cost control is the issue. The first place they look is labor. They count beans and we deal with the results of their bean counts

My question is, "Why should the newsroom be any different from the manufacturing plant?"

So, what do we do to reduce labor costs in manufacturing? We multitask, we cut support head count, we automate if possible, we work longer and harder and most of all, we work smarter. We get more work done with less people. Those who don't, fail in this very competitive world of higher salaries. Perhaps those in the newspaper business who don't understand this need to talk to their friends in manufacturing.

What are the facts of life in manufacturing? I am one of those who have attended meetings where top management has told us to "look at the person on either side and know that the position held by one of every three of you will be gone in one year, with performance being the deciding factor on who stays and who goes," I hated it. I went home and worried and cried at my wife. I woke up at two in the morning and did not go back to sleep that night. And then I went to work and assured my position by performance.

What should the response of newspaper men and women be to the need for leaner and more productive news staffs?

Assure your position in a leaner industry through performance. The weaker and those who fail to produce will surely die, because that is life.

M2

"Why should the newsroom be any different from the manufacturing plant?"

Because the manufacturing plant isn''t mentioned in the Frist Amendment or accorded with any watchdog function.

They're too busy with CYA to whistle-blow.

Error #1 What does having a mention in the first amendment have to do with making a profit? The last time I checked, all news papers were private businesses, with an obligation to the owners or shareholders to make a profit. You can like it or not, but that is reality and the truth. As a business in a world of businesses, they are forced, just like all manufacturing operations to turn a profit

Would you pay $2.00 a copy for your daily newspaper? $3.00? $4.00?

Let's use $2.00 daily paper cost and $4.00 for the Sunday rag.

2.00 X 6 X 52 = $624 + ($4.00 X 52 for Sunday) = $832.00 annual cost of a $2.00 daily paper and a $4.00 Sunday edition.

$832,00 for an annual subscription? I don't think you would pay that, if you subscribe to a paper at all, because most Americans don't. They may occasionally make a purchase on Sunday, or pick up a USA Today at the checkout desk of a motel, but that's about it. The results of heavy staffing would be to increase the cover price of most papers, since ad renenue is about maxed out. Owners who cut staff and demand better performance from reduced staff are only acting responsibly and not anything else. Irresponsible management would keep high staffing levels right up to the day that they stop the presses and lock the doors of the newsroom because they have insufficent income to support operation of their business.

#2 The Constitution says nothing about a watchdog obligation for newspapers. That is a noble cause, and most papers only devote maybe 20% of their publication efforts to that self imposed obligation. If that is your staffing justification for papers with hundreds of reporting staff, what you are saying that papers could fire 80% of their reporting staff and meet the watchdog obligation. They could eliminate the social page, most of sports, all of lifestyle, and probably several other departments that generate the ad revenue that supports watchdog activity. A Constitutional based watchdog-only paper probably would be three sheets thick, if that responsibility actually was covered by the Constitution. Think of the pine trees they would save! We could also say Paris, who? (with a straight face)

#3 I don't understand what you are talking about with your smug CYA comment. As a professional in the pharmaceutical industry, I work long hours to produce products that add significantly more to the quality of American life than any staff writer on any paper in the country. In the past month alone, my company has saved more lives than any ten or twenty papers you might name - maybe a hundred papers combined. Most food plant workers do more long term good than any paper employee. TV assembly line workers and their managers do more for the public good by producing a delivery vehicle for CNN or PBS than any newspaper writer. Without the manufacturing plant that made the computer that the writer used, or the typewriter that his father used, or the printing press that the paper used, or the ink plant that made the ink you get on your hands when you thumb through the next edition, it would be impossible to even print a paper. When a reporter calls his source, he uses a cell phone that some manufactturing owrker made. He takes notes on a pad of paper that a manufacturing worker made. Even auto plant workers do more for the economy any public good than most news writers. We would find a way to survive without newspapers. Try going one day with no steel or aluminum or glass or plastic. You can't even eat your cornflakes without the efforts of a dairy plant operator, or drink your starbucks latte without the efforts of a roasting plant packaging line worker, or the guy who made the french press coffee pot, or the insulated coffee cup or the artiffical swseetener. Artists can't even paint without a manufacturing plant produced canvas and manufacturing plant produced paints. The folk singer uses a Martin Guitar made in a manufacturing plant producing about 80,000 guitars a year. If you think newspapers are more important than manufacturing jobs, you need to sit down for a minute and think about how foolish your reasoning is.

#4 Manufacturing people don't whistle blow. They identify and fix problems and they make things people need. It is a never ending obligation and job. If making Aspirin, toasters, Pillsbury Biscuits or violins was easy, you would be doing it. If you choose to base your belief system on the falsehood that all manufacturing is evil, you need to visit a few manufacturing companies and you might consider googling "news room scandal" or "reporting error" or "innacurate reporting" and see how many evil hits you get. Newspapers are good businesses and they have a place. However, like all other businesses, they must make a profit to survive, unless the government takes them pver and then they can piss off all the tax money they like and it will be ok.

Your claims of drug makers and car makers contributing "more" to the public good or some other such platitude than the media ignores a simple fact: the media is what bridges the people to the leaders.

None of this - the huge drug profits or the huge CEO salaries - would be possible without the media performing its function as watchdog and scold and informer. That is a critical element of democracy.

The media saves more lives than your latest drug ever will - because the media is what stands in the way of a government's natural tendency towards fascism.

We all know what kind of body count an unchecked fascist government can deliver.

Most newspaper reporters live on salaries far less than what writers with their talent could earn if they did PR work for corporations, yet most would consider themselves "prostitutes" if they gave into writing of this nature. Economics are simply a means of staying in business, not a means to the wealth any muckraker worth his salt would report.

As far as the Constitutional issue is concerned, the entire purpose of writing the First Amendment in that manner was to protect the free speech vital to democracy (See: John Peter Zenger)

Which is why there is some justification to look at the HEALTH ISSUES faced by citizens of all nations in this world and specifically to have questions such as are raised by Micheal Moore in his most recent film '' SICKO ''... to ask our selves of what is to be made of the collective Mental Health issues..., (* which invariably can be - or not - Healthy or Very Sick..., such as the case may be..., ) AND THIS CAN BE SHOWN TO EXIST OR NOT by how informed a citizenry is OR NOT ( kept informed) that is ..

And surely , a case can be made that NEWSPAPERS as well as most other INFORMATION PROVIDERS are..., indeed in or should be considered in another bracket ... so that the very democratic life force or VITALITY becomes the most important factor when addressing these very questions..,

Indeed as our bodies and the very idea of staying healthy remains one of the most important issues of our existence... so does the collective mind's healthy issues as to a vibrant and healthy DEMOCRATIC lifeforce is to our .... society !