The Seattle Post-Intelligencer isn’t the only troubled paper with a staff cartoonist. The Star Tribune, home of Steve Sack, has announced that it has not reached an agreement with the Newspaper Guild for concessions needed to service its debt load. The Minneapolis paper owes $400 million and last quarter skipped a $9 million payment to save cash as it tries to restructure its debt. Without an agreement, the paper faces declaring bankruptcy.
The Rocky Mountain News is home to two cartoonists – Drew Litton and Ed Stein. Last month the News was put up for sale. Unconfirmed reports are flying this week that E.W. Scripps, which owns the paper, will announce that no buyer has been found. Possible options include closure of the paper.
And while not a paper announcing closure or bankruptcy, Toronto’s Globe and Mail has announced that it may lay off 80-90 positions within the paper. The Globe and Mail is home to staff cartoonist Brian Gable. The announcement should be made on Friday.
Drew Litton wrote about what might happen to his job on a blog comment of Joe Murray’s website few weeks back:
http://joemurraystudio.com/blog/?p=676
He mentions that he may transition to animation should the worst happens.
Why not a bail out for the newspaper industry?
Who’s going to bailout the newspaper industry, Mick?
The government.
Since the government wanted a hand in the auto industry and the bank industry when they bailed them out, do you think the government having a hand in the newspaper industry is a good idea?
People really need to stop this bailout mentality, as Larry Flynt pointed out last week.