On May 2nd, 2008 or shortly after this date Advance Publications, owner of the Star-Ledger, will determine which of the two production facilities will be shuttered as a cost cutting measure to counter falling advertising revenue.
The Montville and Piscataway production facilities in New Jersey have over six hundred full and part-time employees between each plant. Notification of the shuttering of one of the production plants went out to 365 employees in the pressroom, mailroom, transportation, machinists and plate makers.
Publisher of the Star-Ledger in Newark, George Arwady, notified the 365 craft workers at the newspaper on March 3rd, 2008 that some of the employees would lose their jobs sometime after May 2nd, 2008 when the newspaper consolidates from its current two printing plants to one.
Arwady said in a message to employees.
"As you know from my prior communications, the Star-Ledger cannot continue to operate as it has in the past. We are losing money and we must operate within our means."
One of the affected pressmen wrote.
”Long time since we exchanged emails. I thought I would throw you a bit of news about the Star-Ledger here in New Jersey. It is a paper I work for, that is going through tough times, as are most papers. They are offering buyouts to union pressman. I am a union pressman and will probably take the buyout or be forced to in a few weeks.”
Earlier this afternoon I questioned a person in the know regarding the article by Kate Coe on April 7th, 2008, about the closure of the Los Angeles Times Orange County production facility next January. I was told this was a fabricated story, and that we need both printing plants in order to become the Transcontinental of Southern California, by producing our competitor’s hard copy.
Lets hope this is true, but all the indicators claim the economy will fall further behind, before any relief is seen sometime in September of this year.
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12 comments:
Eddie intill You can triple check a story. Why are you posting it ? is your goal to scare everyone ? any Editor will tell you this. so when you got the facts about the Orange County plant in stone than post it.
i don't know about orange county, but the star ledger story is dead on.
1. Printing newspapers is a money-losing business. With internet penetration so high here in SoCal, the crisis in newspaper revenues, the nationwide economic slow down, and the Tribune's huge debt, how long do you think it will be before the news goes 100% online?
2. The Times can't compete with Transcon because Times production employees are very expensive. Do you think that Transcon will have operators that make 100K/yr?
3. The Orange County plant has problems. Decades of shoddy maintenance caused by lack of funding and poor leadership is just one of them.
The times just spent millions to put in new colorliners in SFV.They upgraded the computers.When asked management if plant was closing they said that all that money would not have been spent.You do remember Chatsworth it was closed.
They did not water grass ,repair the tile on the wall by Cafe,nor did they fix the hot water heater for the showers.So you wont know till it happens.Remember they announced the closing the same day The president said the economy was getting better.(BUSH)
How long will it before all news is on line?
I remember during the Apollo program all the Futuristic sooth sayers talked about how life would be in the 21st Century. We would all be using hoover crafts, Cities under the sea and vacations on the moon.
Wev'e had print for 500 years.
Most people I talk to still enjoy reading print on paper and not staring at a LCD or CRT Screen.
And, many people still enjoy vinyl records and 8-track tapes.
If AM radio can survive there might just be a chance newspapers can too!
My 8 track still has a recorder,but i cant get the tapes,and my 78 are all scratched
I'll bet that none of those soothsayers foresaw the Internet.
I like the look and feel of a well-designed and nicely printed broadsheet, but I now get most of my info, except that in bound books, from Internet sites.
The only way for the LAT to make a comeback is for it to breakaway from the profit-driven businessmen and bring back the journalistic greatness and superior talent. This paper is dead, dead, dead if it stays in the hands of hardcore anti-journalism bosses.
Here is something else you should know: Zell isn't your partner, he's a amoral scourge upon the earth. Just ask any of the hundreds of fixed-income, elderly, infirmed now-homeless that he and his lawyers created when they forced cities and counties to drop rent controls. I think that he is going to create a whole bunch of ESOP-less former LAT employees too.
And many people still enjoy Vinyl records and 8 track tapes?
I guess you didn't read the article in the Times about Vinyl records coming back.
Kids are playing their parents records and enjoying the better sound.
If you were an audophile you would know that vinyl records still are the best scouce ofreproducing music.
Use a moving coil cartridge, a remastered or direct to disc recording and a linear tracking turntable.
Now record that brand new vinyl albumn on a Half Track Reel to Reel at 15 IPS. Use a low volume so there is no feedback through the Turntable and you can replay the recording 500 times instead of 50 times before loss of fidelity as on the Vinyl.
Oh and do use a tube Amp. Yes they are still the best.
You missed the point.
What I should have said is, "use a subject to make your point that you know what your talking about". I got your point , but obviosly you didn't get mine.
You never know what might seem like old tech, that might have still have some life left to it.
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