Tribune Cutting to the Bone

The following two statements have many Tribune Employees wondering what the comapny will look like in a few short years. The idea of the Los Angeles Times being sold is looking better and better as the news rolls out everyday.

Many in the pressroom are asking one another "Where else can we cut costs?"

I'm sure the blueprint for cutting costs is already written, but no one's talking.

FitzSimons added detail to Tribune's previously announced plan to cut $200 million in expenses over the next two years, saying that $40 million would come from technology efficiencies, such as centralized advertising and circulation systems.

An additional $80 million to $100 million would come from, among other things, outsourcing computer operations, reducing newsprint consumption, sharing national and foreign news content among the newspapers and TV stations, and eliminating jobs through attrition and layoffs, he said. Citing the regulatory "quiet period" imposed on corporate officers while a buyback offer is pending, FitzSimons declined to answer questions from the dozens of securities analysts and reporters in the audience.

Here at the Los Angeles Times Olympic Production Facility, we have already started reducing newsprint consumption. While starting my press today, I noticed my waste was going to the mailroom as good copies, and I had not pressed the good switch yet. After stopping and starting my press many times, the same thing occured, waste going to the mailroom as good newspapers, after running as few as 200 copies. Looks as if my judgement on what a good newspaper consists of is in question?

Luckily a sharp mailer pulled all the waste before it was sent out on the street.

We have very few complaints from readers of our newspaper, but with this new way of cutting waste, this will change rather quickly.

Tell me it was only a computer glitch, and not a new way of doing business at the Los Angeles Times?

Eddie