This kind of backward thinking is what has helped to kill the OLD MEDIA DINOSAURS. (Emphasis mine.)

This is wrecking to read because it's my industry, and it's what I had always wanted to be in, and we're at a sink or swim time right now with no actual solutions. All we can do right now is hold on and hope that things can bounce back. Say what you will about bias, or poor coverage, or too much wire content, but Lou Carlozo's post is the heart of what the industry means to the people who are actually in it to do some good and tell a story, and I hope that it won't discourage people from wanting to become journalists.

I just can't wrap my head around the justification they give that bonuses are 'vital for the survival of the paper.' In today's economy, people are happy enough to still have their JOBS, regardless whether there's a bonus at the end of the year or not. I think that 13 million could do a lot better re-hiring those who were fired. If I worked there, I'd be wondering - regardless whether I got a bonus or not - if I'd be the next one to be let go. NOBODY wants to be out trying to find work right now.

maybe he lost his job because he puts so much time into this "god" character. should have spent more time growing with the industry.

holy smokes, he still uses an aol email account..

I think that newspapers must be saved. They're basically being killed by competition from the internet / "blogosphere", television, and the waning desire of the American public to be informed, but the truth is that the majority of journalism is still conducted by newspapers. Just take this blog, for instance. How often in the last 6 months has an original story been posted, vs. a repeated story from a newspaper. If you compare the two sets of stories found in those categories, which provides information which truly has an impact on your life, vs. which is good for a chuckle. Do new, alternative news outlets really have the budget to be able to research and report in-depth? Also, last time I checked, blogs don't give you coupons (our newspaper subscription has paid for itself several times).

/rant

I feel for the guy because he's been in the industry for 20+ years. But having said that, it appears that maybe he's not praying hard enough?

All joking aside, one of my esteemed Senators (Kerry) wants to 'save' the Boston Globe. How do you save something that is no longer being used? Seriously. Papers are dying for a reason.

This may sound ridiculous, but this is akin to trying to 'save' a typewriter company back when desktops/PCs were hitting the market. The company that adapts will be the company that will survive.

Companies kill me with this "retention bonus" BS. Yes, I'm sure everyone still employed there is thinking, "Wow, everyone around me is getting fired, and I still have my job, they better pay me a bonus to thank me for sticking around!" I mean, really????

@Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: These are likely retention bonuses. They are typically paid out when a company merges or is in an uncertain state. You don't want all the best talent to jump ship and look for something better so you offer them some cash to stick around for a year or two and hope things are better. If they leave before the date given they don't get the money. It sounds odd on paper, but it is needed so the company doesn't lose the good people it wants and needs to keep.

@morganlh85: totally agree.. they should be happy enough to keep their job, and i like the people i work with enough that i'd gladly give up a bonus for them to keep their jobs.. retention bonuses are bullshit.

My company is giving out "Bonuses" instead of raises this year. Basically they are just giving out regular raises but they don't have to give out the same amount of money next year and they save money on the books. Plus in Canada, bonuses are subject to 47% taxes instead of 15% income tax. Ouch.

Well, let's be authentic reporter man. The Chicago Tribune is not laying you off *because* of the recession and the Chicago Tribune is not another "victim" of the recession, the Chicago Tribune is, very fittingly, going out of business... nearly independent from the recession. The recession does not help things for any business, but The Globe, Chronical, NYT, Tribune, and so on, have been performing worse and worse even during the boom times of the economic bubble.

It's too bad that the nation's longest running newspapers are going out of business, they provide an invaluable product for many people, but business is about providing value. We will be losing an important source of original information when papers like the Globe, Tribune, and so on, collapse, but it will also open the door for new media to come in.

My beef is that while people are losing jobs, I'm not seeing anyone come up with a viable solution to begin moving print productions online and to give people back their jobs. Real reporting is done regardless of whether one has a computer, or a notebook or a typwriter. It was done 80 years ago with a notebook and a pen, you're telling me that a newspaper can't reinvent itself as an online operation and keep its staff? And I'm so tired of this "doing more with less" mentality - good reporting is good reporting. You can't send three interns to do the job of one journalist who has spent five years covering city hall. It's the experience that still counts.

Bottom line is, this industry needs a business model that fits for the internet, and keeps and creates jobs.

@nataku83: I dunno. It seems that while newspapers might go away, the kind of journalism they provide probably won't. It'll just be moved to even more localized, grassroots citizen reporters. Just about anyone with a semi-modern phone can provide live accounts at a scene via Twitter/blog. Deep investigative journalism might take a hit in the short term, but people who are passionate about a particular issue will take up its investigative mantle, and more general audience blogs/news aggregators will get that reporting out to the public.

As for coupons, between the daily deals here on Consumerist and coupon sites around the web, you can find coupons aplenty online. But I confess, I still buy the Sunday paper for the coupons.

@nataku83: I think that blacksmiths must be saved. They're basically being killed by competition from "automobiles", bicycles and the waning desire of the American public to feed and keep smelly horses, but the truth is that the majority of ironworking is still conducted by blacksmiths.

/sarcasm

@pecan 3.14159265: I have to admit that it's pretty disheartening. I just recently figured out what I want to do with my life. Now I might not be able to do it. :P

@nataku83: How do you propose that they be saved?

@jklug80: the good old: "you've survived another year 'bonus'"

they need to change the name of those to "partially deferred salaries"

@nataku83: Newspapers need a new model, just like the RIAA

No business venture can succeed when the pigs at the top are swilling six and seven-figure salaries and bonuses.

Disgusting...

@nataku83: Even if the most original stories are printed first in a newspaper, they will still make it to my computer, probably within a few hours of publishing.

Plus, if it's breaking news, you're more likely to hear it on the news or find it on a website. Since I am already paying for internet to use for school and whatnot, I may as well get my news for free rather than also pay for a subscription service.

And like chuckleback mentioned, there are plenty of ways to get coupons or sales online. Kroger emails me their weekly circular AND sends me big envelopes full of coupons every few months - I save so much money!

@HiPwr: Bloggers should no longer be allowed to use the letters U, M, and V. This will give the newspapers a competitive advantage and continue to lower the quality of written media.

@bostonhockey: Good point in your last line there. I'm in college and have never been much for newspapers, because I am so used to doing everything online. It's a bummer that the newspaper industry is going down, but like you said, if they can adapt somehow, then they will be fine.

@chucklebuck: I'm not exactly sure how grassroots journalism will be able to provide useful insight into state and federal politics and international reporting. There are all sorts of advantages that legitimate journalists have over private citizens, and I doubt that will change as newspapers die. Also, between fatwallet, consumerist, and the various online grocery coupon sites my g/f uses, I think we've got most of the internet deals taken care of, but we find that the stuff in the newspaper just about doesn't overlap with what's available online, although that may change if papers disappear.

@Canino: You sir fall under the "waning desire of Americans to be informed" category of my rant.

@HiPwr: I, like most critics, do not propose anything constructive. I maintain a subscription to my local paper, but do not have any grandiose plan to revive this dying industry.

@snowburnt: Yes, yes they do. Keeping relatively "major" online news outlets from re-posting their stories for free might aid in that. I wouldn't go as far as the RIAA, who prosecuted individuals who have had virtually no impact, but certainly limiting the availability of free online content might help, or at least trying to keep most of that content on their own webpage.

@Russ Savage: Old media meets new media from 1997.

@pecan 3.14159265: Forgive me, but aren't most newspapers online anyway? I'm in no way trying to be snarky, but even my small hometown newspaper has been online for as long as I can remember.

I do agree that a better business model that works with the internet instead of competing against it is necessary. I just can't think of any decent suggestions at the moment.

@Canino: +1

I know the article cited retention bonuses...but what of a company that is legally obligated to pay severance packages, and doesn't have the funds to do so? I'm not saying Tribune is like this, I'm asking hypothetically.

@jklug80: Lose the good poeple they want to keep? Where exactly are those people going to go? I agree that a retention bonus might make sense in a merger situation or other uncertain state that affects the particular company, but it doesn't make sense when the entire economy and the industry is in a major downturn.

@satindevil: Yes, most newspapers have an online presence, but most of the revenue still comes from print. And for some reason, newspapers think they can fire people and still get content for the newspaper and the internet. You can't have your cake and eat it too, Tribune. You can't fire 53 people and expect to get the same degree of content or quality.

So the problem is that yes, newspapers are online, but print is still where the money is flowing from - so when that well is starting to dry up, something needs to be done to find a new well and in this case, it's the internet. It's just that a lot of people in a position to change things have their hands shoved in their pockets and spend most of their time griping about the problem rather than actively trying to solve the problem. I need my industry to survive and to thrive. I need for myself and my friends to have jobs doing what we wanted to do, doing what we went to school to do.

@Rohan Singh: Agreed. My g/f works at a news station and hates it, but there's just nothing else available right now.

@nataku83: I have to disagree, at least in this area, the local paper (owned by Gannet, I believe) is, and always has been, of such poor quality that it isn't worth spending money on unless they have some good coupons in the Sunday edition. The local "news" is only of interest to a very narrow reader base, they rarely branch out to see what is going on in the rest of the community, and the rest are just wire stories I read on the internet the day before. I do spend money on newspapers, but I buy papers from the two nearest metro areas.

@nataku83: @Canino: You sir fall under the "waning desire of Americans to be informed" category of my rant.

Oh, I love to be informed. The point, since you missed it, is that businesses and business models evolve. Old ones die, new ones take their place. The dissemination of information to the public was once the purview of newspapers. That paradigm is changing and evolving into another model. Newspapers will soon suffer the same fate as blacksmiths and any number of other past industries and occupations - there will be a few that continue to cater to specialty customers, but for the most part they will change to the new model or they will disappear.

@nataku83: "@Canino: You sir fall under the "waning desire of Americans to be informed" category of my rant."

Hmm, I guess my desire to be informed must have waned as well, since I also fail to see the need to prop up a dying industry.

The problems newspapers face come from several directions. On the one hand, people and businesses aren't using classified ads, which were the biggest moneymaker for the papers. Also, lots of large companies, like department stores, have merged or gone out of business. Where three or four stores might have been big advertising buyers, now there's only one. Thirdly, people have gotten used to getting online content for free, so they either don't want to read the news on paper or don't have time or desire in the morning to read it. I spent 35 years in the newspaper business, since my 18th birthday. When I got laid off in the summer of '07, almost everyone who was asked to leave then was at least 50 and many were at early retirement age. Now you've got newspaper staffed with young people who don't have the skill, expertise or historical perspective to cover the news adequately. (Not to slam young writers; we had many fine young writers right out of college. But now I'm seeing lots of stupid grammar, spelling and factual errors fill the news pages.) Now that I've been out of the biz for a few years, I don't even subscribe to a newspaper anymore.

@Canino: Would you care to cite an example? The only newspaper "alternatives" I've seen don't actually do any significant independent investigation. It's not the "paper" part that needs preservation, but the "news" part. I agree that for the purposes of dissemination of information, a newspaper is the equivalent of a blacksmith, is costly and wasteful, but for the acquisition of information, there are essentially no alternatives.

Good - all the recession sob stories are so out of hand. Everyone wants to blame everything on the "recession" and cry about it instead of realizing they are responsible for their decisions.

Maybe the newspapers in print form will die and re-emerge as news gathering organizations that distribute their reporting. Now you have AP and Reuters wires, maybe soon you'll see a New York Times wire, carrying NY Times reported news. I can see blog networks paying for access to these new wires.

Like others have said, it's a business model issue.

Funny, i'd have thought that having reporters on staff would be vital for the survival of a newspaper. But then, I gave up my subscription to the Tribune almost a decade ago, so what do I know?

(I gave up my subscription because delivery was unreliable. Delivery is very reliable online.)

@nataku83: but for the acquisition of information, there are essentially no alternatives.

See, that was kind of my point. For national/international news, politics, etc., organizations like the AP and Reuters have that stuff covered. Even if newspapers go away, there will still be demand for their services from web sites, TV and radio news, so I can't see them disappearing anytime soon. The gap that would be created by newspapers going away would be local news. Things like local politics can be reported on by citizen journalists who attend town meetings and events, demonstrations, and so on.

Now, I will admit that whether or not this gap is actually filled is entirely reliant on people stepping in to fill the gap. I am optimistic that it would happen, but I can also understand the argument that it wouldn't.

@bostonhockey: I grew up reading the Boston Globe pretty much daily, and I'm the third generation in my family with the habit. And I moved away, to Amherst and to New York City and to Virginia, and I kept trying to read it online daily... but the writing, reporting, and editing has just gotten too petty and atrocious for words. I have a glance at it a couple of times a week now and spend maybe five or ten minutes on the articles actually worth reading.

I read the WaPo online because it's my local paper now, though not all of it (the transit blog is handy, but obviously that's an online-only feature). But when the New York freaking TIMES is mixing up "hoard" and "horde in the lede of its editorials, I lose my patience for the dinosaurs of journalism.

@chucklebuck: AP and Reuters overlook a decent amount of news. I think we're already overly dependent on them, particularly for international reporting (no American news organization wants to send reporters oversees anymore - it's too risky and expensive). In addition, do you really want the majority of your national and international reporting to come from just a handful of organizations? Finally, I'd worry that grassroots reporting would reduce credibility to almost zero.

I worked in sales for Careerbuilder.com for 3.5 years. CB is owned partially by Tribune. I was paid on base plus bonus. I don't know specifically who those 703 people are who are getting bonuses, but I would be willing to bet, I know a few of them.

Those bonuses represent the vast majority of a sales person's pay. I know that's the argument that was made for banks. However, instead of people making hundreds of thousands, they are making a decent middle wage living.

I can speak, because I was on that pay plan. Without bonuses, classified ad sales people will make $25,000/year. That's the base salary. That. is. it.

13MM divided by 703 people is only 18k per person. If someone is responsible for half a million or more in revenue a year, that is fair compensation that they make 40-45k a year.

" The Tribune also said that it will be hiring new people to expand its consumer coverage. ' The paper will expand its local news operation and establish a new "watchdog unit to increase our consumer and investigative coverage," Mr. Kern told his staff.'"

Note that Lou had 20 years in an is middle aged. By dumping him now they likely screw him out of any pension set up they had for him and got rid of a higher salaried employee. The new people they hire for their so call watchdog group will be younger, "hipper", and by coincidence work cheaper and they won't expect any pension plan or retirement plan at all.

Lou's axing was nothing but a way to dump older workers and hire younger, cheaper workers who get fewer benefits. I saw this same thing happen at Volkswagen of America, Inc. in the last two years.

The Tribune is collapsing because they bought the Times-Mirror Co. which was owned by the totally dysfunctional Chandler family. Which the Tribsters apparently didn't do a very good due diligence on!
Then the loony Chandlers got pissed off about how little money they were making & the Trib Co. had to pay them off to go away, which caused a financial disaster for the company that allowed a real estate vulture, Sam Zell, to come in & "buy" the company by borrowing against its own assets & pension funds. Zell figured he could sell off the Cubs, radio-TV stations & the real estate & make money.
He didn't think that a crash would occur, plus he cost himself between $500 million-$750 million on the Cubs sale when he tried to bribe Blagojevich to have the State of Illinois buy Wrigley Field & lease it back to the new owner of the Cubs.
So the Cubs are being sold for around $900 million at last announcement, but the early offers were in the $1.5 billion range.
Except that no one wanted the Cubs without owning Wrigley Field & then the market collapsed & Blago got arrested for all of his shenanigans & Zell is being questioned by the US Attorney in Chicago about his dealings with Blago.
It would be fitting if Zell ends up at least as an unindicted co-conspirator in all of this!
Now the Trib Co. can't pay off those loans & is bankrupt & that idiot & goniff Zell now says he shouldn't have bought it.
Now nobody thinks Zell is a genius anymore & he will have destroyed at least three major newspapers [LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun] in the process!

@Russ Savage: Probably just lost his work email address. :(

@ideagirl: "the local paper (owned by Gannet, I believe) is, and always has been, of such poor quality that it isn't worth spending money on unless they have some good coupons in the Sunday edition."

They key phrase here is "owned by Gannett." Kiss of newspapery death.

@chucklebuck: "organizations like the AP and Reuters have that stuff covered. Even if newspapers go away, there will still be demand for their services from web sites, TV and radio news, so I can't see them disappearing anytime soon."

AP and Reuters have struggled and cut staff as newspapers have waned because web sites DON'T PAY FOR THE FEED and TV and radio aren't as big a revenue stream as newspapers are for AP and Reuters and AFP and the others.

@Enkael: Worse then this are the companies that are using the recession as cover to seriously cut costs. IBM, I'm looking at you. Using the global downturn as an excuse to layoff people when your business doing well is pretty sleazy.

I'm sure your shareholders approve. At least the ones that didn't also work for you.