Fargo Forum, Grand Forks Herald Slash Jobs Due to Mismanagement

• March 16, 2009

At least the paper’s good for something.
How many rounds of job cuts for the Herald?

The Grand Forks Herald announced the layoffs of eight full-time employees Thursday.
Publication of Red River Valley Women Today, a magazine produced by the Herald advertising department’s special publications team, also was ended. This meant a loss of four jobs related to the magazine.
The other four employees included two reporters in the newsroom and two workers in the circulation department.
The Herald is owned by Fargo-based Forum Communications Co., which also is making cuts at its 34 other newspapers in four states.
Thursday, the elimination of the equivalent of 25 full-time positions was announced at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. That newspaper cut 21 full-time positions last month, as well.

I know the newspaper industry is in a time of transition but these cuts upon cuts ought to be teaching these arrogant newspaper editors and publishers a lesson. If they keep insulting roughly half of the public they are going to keep having to cut and cut and cut.
How many people have lost their jobs because of the management of these two newspapers? The real tragedy is that the people most responsible for the cuts are still sitting in their corner offices.
Job cuts are a tactical move. Figuring out how to not despise your customers is a more strategic thing.
Why are the guys at the top immune from the consequences of their actions?

Tags: Media, North Dakota News

http://Array ec99

“(Yellowbird was forced to “retire”)”

Wow, didn’t know that. But I suppose Marilyn will still be around to write her informative restaurant reviews.
Eneils Bailey

Rob,
I would bet that you have more readers a day on your blog than “The Grand Forks Herald” has people wiping their ass with their paper.

Congratulations, it is a great distinction, may I wipe and thrust forth my salute..
jimmypop

im telling you…. the papers never kept up with the internet and now it might be too late.

the problem; they dont tell us stories we dont already know about and they cant react as fast as a blog can. im too young, but i sure some of you remember the ‘extra. extra. read all about it.’ days?
docdave

All these newspapers that are going belly up are run by liberals and we know that liberals are incapable of learning anything from their mistakes.
8 Kilo 1

Reality and what you think are two different things.

Really?

You told us the WSJ and NY Post were doing fine. Yet, the Post was losing money even when the newspaper business was good and the WSJ is making cutbacks.
http://www.fishinglurekit.com/ Fishing lures

The newspaper industry should start reviewing their management strategies to avoid further lay-off of employees.
http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

I am surprised that McFeely has made it this long at the Forum.
8 Kilo 1

The Washington Times has never turned a profit in its existence.

The WSJ isn’t doing as well as you believe:

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2009/01/30/cuts-coming-next-week-at-the-wall-street-journal

Re the NY Post, its very similar to the Washington Times in that it has been losing money annually and is only kept alive because Rupert Murdoch’s son runs it.
Bobby

The Herald and Forum were making tons of money – 20 percent profit margins or more — back in the ’80s and ’90s, and they were just as biased or dismissive of conservatives and the public back then. Something else has changed to kill newspapers…It’s called the Internet and online advertising (mostly).

Weird thing is that their dumping employees right as the big floods are headed their way. Unlike 1997, the Herald won’t be able to rely on other Knight-Ridder newspaper reporters to win them a Pulitzer this time.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Take the years of biased coverage that the editor/publisher ordered against the Fighting Sioux Logo. How many subscriptions did that cost them.

Once gone they aren’t coming back.

How many people lost their jobs due to that one guy’s arrogance?
http://verizonwireless.com/ ND in MD

Just curious, since the salary, compensation and pay of the head and high performing sales people of Blue Cross and Shield of North Dakota have been in the news lately, does anyone know how much the executive, publishers and editors at the Forum and Herald get paid? How much do ne get paid to run a newspaper into the ground?
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Yellowbird never bothered me. Mostly because I didn’t read her column.

Maybe nobody did and that’s why she’s moving on.
http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

Take the years of biased coverage that the editor/publisher ordered against the Fighting Sioux Logo. How many subscriptions did that cost them.

Once gone they aren’t coming back.

How many people lost their jobs due to that one guy’s arrogance?

I wish the Editor of the Herald Mike Jacobs was next, the Herald has jolted to the left and their ANTI-Sioux log probably has cost them a lot of subscriptions. I don’t know why I spend the 14.75 getting that rag, its worthless I can get more from reading SAB and the Drudge Report. I think the only reason I get the paper is because of it’s coverage of Fighting Sioux hockey. If they let Brad Go I would be down with my subscription as well.
8 Kilo 1

NY Post:

In the end, Murdoch has not stuck with any American newspaper other than the New York Post, which he still operates at a substantial loss.

Circulation doesn’t mean much; after all, you could our paper away for nothing and claim an “increasing circulation.”

The WSJ isn’t a rightwing paper–it has a rabidly rightwing editorial page. It’s news and business (its bread-and-butter) are very balanced. But it’s also losing money.

Frankly, most newspapers have never spent any significant amount o time in the black.

That’s quite an astounding comment. The NY Times has been in the black since the late 1890′s. The Washington Post has operated in the black since the 1950′s.
Extra Extra

Just a few months ago Jacobs gave a big speech to a buncha journalistos where he boasted about the diversity of his staff. In this latest purge, the newsroom reporters he got rid of were the only two Native Americans (Yellowbird was forced to “retire”) and all three were female.

Hey big Mike! So much for your “diversity.”

Hypocrite!

With people like that running their show, no wonder subs are down!
8 Kilo 1

Sorry to rain on your logic but if newspapers are failing because they “keep insulting roughly half of the public”–don’t you suppose rightwing newspapers would be enjoying unprecedented economic success?

They aren’t.

The Washington Times has been in business almost thirty years. They have yet to have one year where they’ve operated in the black.
docdave

Washington Times a right wing newspaper?

The Washington Times is a newspaper owned by Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, through its company News World Communications. The paper was first published on May 17, 1982.

I believe the reverend has his own agenda.
Eneils Bailey

I absolutely don’t get what newspapers are putting out these days.
They are writing and appealing to a market that never read newspapers.
I have not had a subscription to a newspaper in almost twenty years.
Reminds me of the demographic who sit down and watch the CBS Evening News; seventy-five per cent of then are over 55 years of age. At 6:30, they turn on the TV, click the the CBS channel and then go epileptic when Walter, after twenty five years does not appear on the screen. There sits the perky Katie. News, it ain’t, flash and dash, it is. They get a pig’s snout full of her tripe, all the while thinking truthfulness and honor even got to and past Walter Cronkite.

What was that song? “The day the music(and the network News) died.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

There aren’t many right leanin papers but the few that exist are doing well.

Wall stree journal. New york post. Don’t know anything about the times but suspect their problem may be a saturated dc market.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Reality and what you think are two different things.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

The post is the only paper in america with a growing circulation and the wsj is the only one turning a profit. Frankly, most newspapers have never spent any significant amount o time in the black.

But whatever. Believe what you want.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

does anyone know how much the executive, publishers and editors at the Forum and Herald get paid? How much do ne get paid to run a newspaper into the ground?

Not to mention the head of Forum Communications.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

OMaybe if they quit being such flaks for the powers that be they’d gain some readership back.

SayAnythingBlog.com

Fargo Forum, Grand Forks Herald Slash Jobs Due to Mismanagement

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