The publisher plans to tell its workers today that it will fire 50 of its 170 employees, according to people familiar with The Daily?s plans.
The move comes 18 months after the tablet newspaper?s high-profile launch, and a little more than a month after News Corp. announced plans to split itself into an entertainment company and a newspaper company. (News Corp. also owns this Web site.)
The worst thing the news industry ever did was to give away their content for free. I had high hopes for this endeavor as someone with deep pockets could prove the tablet as a possible platform for paid content. It might be too early to write The Daily’s obituary, but not sure how this announcement can be spun as a positive sign.
Other details: the cuts will mostly be in the area of sports and editorial as they were the least read sections of The Daily.
Conclusion: web, print–fail. Free: WIN
This is the slow death of journalism…so very sad. This, after reading an article that there would be no more professional writers in the future:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/there-will-be-no-more-professional-writers-in-the-future/article4441060/
Just more collateral damage into the inevitable evolution of total electronic media.
Interesting how sports and editorial were the least-read sections. I’m kinda glad that for once sports isn’t one of the top sections.
Speaking of sports, I wonder how quickly newspapers really would die if the sports sections ceased to exist.
I don’t think professional writers are going away, but the way they get paid may change. But, the abstract version of the game is the same – make something readers like and they will pay you money for it.