Good christ, how do you like this Economy — especially all you poor doomed media people? But at least “New Deal” Washington is immune to the national media meltdown, right? Not so much. Join us for what will probably be a not-fun new feature about Washington metro publications and journalists getting the axe. What should we call it? Ah, how about “Blood on the Snow,” as tribute to the Father of Our District’s famous remarks about all the poor dumb shoeless Revolutionary War soldiers who died under his command, in wintertime.
(Once the inch of snow is forgotten, we will change the name to “Blood on the Rats.”)
- The long-rumored shutdown of Washington Post Book World is finally official. This is actually terrible. How much does it cost to print a few extra tabloid-size pages with a few book reviews, in the nation’s capital? The standalone section will be disappeared next month, and what book reviews are printed will be stuffed in the back of Style and Outlook somewhere, by the “Do You Have Psoriasis?” ads. A bunch of famous authors have sent a letter protesting the decision, blah blah, but for now Washington will have to rely on Wonkette’s new weekly book section, which is also funny. [Howard Kurtz]
- AOL is cutting 10% of its remaining 7,000 employees, getting rid of an unknown number of temporary and contract workers, and shedding office space. Empty chunks of the Dulles headquarters will be leased out. No word yet on how many of the latest 700 job cuts will hit No. Virginia employees. [Kara Swisher]
- The last issue of the Baltimore Examiner free daily will be February 15. The website will also be shut down. About 90 people will lose their jobs, as none of them will be invited to work for the surviving Washington Examiner. [Baltimore Sun]
- Oh, christ, Congressional Quarterly is going up for sale. Didn’t we spread some gossip about that, recently? Hang on …. ah, we posted a rumor about the impending doom at Roll Call. Close enough, right? (Or, “soon enough,” ugh.) Hopefully the sale of CQ will go better than the sale of the Baltimore Examiner. [Press Release]
That’s it for today! This sure is depressing! How does Hamilton Nolan write these things every day without turning to …. eh never mind.
{ 43 comments }
What’s black and white and red all over?
Maybe it’s not the economy, it’s just that less things are happening. Like, on the earth. To write about. ?
The new media’s gonna be cool. All it’s going to be is Keith Olbermann, Rush Limbaugh and a bunch of blogs. Oh, and those fliers full of coupons they send you in the mail sometimes. That’s it.
This makes me so happy to be out of work! I <3 unemployment with no state benefits. KTHX Georgia.
Outside of D.C., over 100,000 jobs lost this week.
More tax cuts, plz, John Boner. That will solve everything.
It’s sad to see anyone lose their job…unless they work for Almost On Line. Seriously though, if this meens people might be reading even less than they do now, that can’t be good. Oh, wait, these are going out of business because no one reads them? Never mind.
People still read??? WTF.
Now what will I use to amplify my charming paper hat collection? I hate having to print out articles off the web. The paper just doesn’t “work” the same, know what I mean?
I think WaPo is taking Updike’s death a little too hard. Watch for ex-staffers to be selling their own Seksy Rich White People in the Hamptons books soon.
I don’t know how the Examiner has survived this thing, it is the most childish newspaper in the world. SF Examiner is no different (OH WAIT WE ARE ALL RETARDED CRETINS FORGET THAT).
What am I going to wrap my fish and chips in huh? Talk about a multiplier effect.
[re=231831]masterdebater[/re]: I’ve been meaning to read, you know, but I need to finish these Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Zelda: Oracle of Ages games first. Then I’ll pick up a book. I promise!
….and yet the Moonie Paper continues to publish. They are lucky they have an unbalanced religious zealot to bankroll them.
On the AOL layoffs, it wasn’t that long ago that Virginia was crowing about being the tech center of the country. Funny how the worm turns.
We don’t need book reviews. We just buy whatever Oprah tells us to.
You’ll know its a depression when they stop printing porn
and yet, the turd Kristol got another gig in no time.
Thank goodness Wonkette is part of the virtual interweb media which is immune to the business cycle, depressions and collapsing markets.
[re=231831]masterdebater[/re]:
Means less crazy on the ‘tubes, no?
The evolution of mankind:
From illiterate apes > to stone tablets > to printed bibles > to Fox News and Fox Sports > to illiterate apes.
I don’t know where Wonkette fits in there?
This makes no sense:
“Our readership is, among metropolitan areas, one of the most literary populations in the country. We understand they read and care a lot about books on contemporary affairs, as well as literature and fiction.”
Because Style and Outlook have higher readership than Book World, the paper’s book coverage will reach more people in those sections, Brauchli said.
How can it possibly reach more when a separate section conveniently falls right out of the rest of the paper? Caring readership aside, perhaps if Book World had devoted more column inches to books that people outside the Beltway might actually want to read and buy it might have attracted more advertisers.
Too bad these guys are going under. However, in the event that Politico disappears into its own navel, I won’t mourn.
[re=231833]Mr Blifil[/re]: [re=231838]Campbell Brown[/re]: And what will I roll up and bop my dog on the nose with when he’s bad? We need to bail out these newspapers, or America is doomed to become a nation of the paper-hatless being savaged by undisciplined dogs while holding their fish & chips in their hands.
I get all my news from web cam YouTube reports by citizen commentators.
Blogs are the new ‘books’.
I don’t know how it works in other cities, but the Examiner’s business model here in Baltimore was to just deliver the paper every day to every house in neighborhoods that were above a certain level of affluence, whether they asked for them or not — and clearly, nobody ever asked for it, because it is a shitty right-wing rag. Then they can go to advertisers, claiming wildly inflated “subscription” numbers and saying that all of their subscribers were wealthy, so clearly you want to shell out for ads for diamond-encrusted gold or whatever. There are also a few boxes around town where you can get it for free, to stoke the illusion that it is a real newspaper of some sort.
We live just on the wrong side of University Ave. to get it, but a friend who lives with the richies has called repeatedly to stop the damn thing, all of which ended in frustration, because obviously for the delivery guys the “throw paper at every house” algorithm is much simpler than the “throw paper at every house except this one lady” algorithm.
I do feel bad for those who lost their jobs (probably most of them got laid off from the Sun in the last five years) but I don’t exactly think the Baltimore media landscape is going to suffer any more than it already does from this.
all i want to know is if this means the end of the Examiner! and Express! a-holes blocking my way to the metro escalators. Hmmmmm?
One of my clients just scored a big post with McGraw-Hill. Not the publisher, the Irish bar in Carnegie Hill.
[re=231890]jfruh[/re]: I missed that episode of The Wire. Which season?
Everybody knows that the first webcast of ‘The Naked News’ was the death knell of print journalism.
[re=231865]Godot[/re]: You made me shoot hobo beans out my nose.
[re=231833]Mr Blifil[/re]: I’m sure you could find some cool paper hats at McDonald’s, where All Of America will soon be working.
Well, at least you’re not selling your airport…yet.
http://dailysuffering.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/everyone-should-be-in-minnesota-saturday-morning-early-before-all-the-good-stuff-is-gone/
[re=231829]Dernyul[/re]: About time DC (especially NoVa, home of the wealthiest towns, blah, blah) is getting gets their share of the pain. Welcome to the rest of the world, after that 147mil inauguration…
I’m still waiting for housing prices to plummet in G’town.
Yes…. I am a pessimist… unless I get my 1% share of the 900 billion.
Yeah, this economy stinks, bad. I think pretty much everyone is feeling the effects of the lousy financial crisis. Poeople living in extreme poverty, however, are feeling it the most. Food prices in Africa, for example, have stayed drastically high compared to the global drop in prices. If something is not done soon, the number of people living on less than a dollar per day will increase exponentially.
$820 billion: Recently passed stimulus plan.
$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.
Political priorities by the numbers. Read more about it on the BORGEN PROJECT website (borgenproject.org)
[re=231970]Special Agent Jack Mehoff[/re]: CHECK OWT MIE BLAWG…
Can’t we at least bring back the WPA and have the journos blog and paint murals on
public buildings or something? Fuckin’ Sanchez would need a city block of buildings
for his drivel.
[re=231828]Larry McAwful[/re]: “Sometimes?!” Are you kidding, those newsprint tabloid-o’-coupons things are filling up the lobby of my building RIGHT NOW — they are everywhere, all the time, eternal, the cockroaches of the print world… Who even looks at those things, anyway
Has Roll Call been killed off yet? That publisher they had was creepy
What took DC so long? We’ve been shedding jobs like the dickens* in media for awhile now. At least your entire state isn’t broke.
*No seriously, I’m thinking of taking up pickpocketing and/or chimney sweeping
iI wish I had an armchair with a boob on it like that.
Every cloud has a silver lining: Now there’ll be fewer newspapers that Sarah Palin has to read every day.
Meh. Once you’ve read one book, you’ve read them all.
Reading Riteing and Rithmetic taught to the tune of a hickory stick. Thats one less abuse that graduate students have to bear in academia.
Sorry , my punctuation fairy has the flu this week. No commas for you!
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