Time Inc. Layoffs vs. Bloggers

There is a lot of talk around the web that bloggers like myself and others are replacing the information source of magazines and the need to subscribe to those magazines. I have to say first and foremost that bloggers are nothing without the dedicated staff of writers and reporters at any publishing news venue. Without the investigative staff of reporters there is no news or opinion of that news to blog on!

I don’t do any research or investigating into any story I write my opinion on other than reading a well written piece by a dedicated professional reporter. My postings are the easy part simply because someone has put a very huge personal effort into getting the story out and in print on their media source.

The publishing media is changing and the Web is a large part of it. Time Inc. is looking at that changing market and reacting with layoffs for many people on many of the companies they own. Katharine Q. Seelye from The New York Times has this to say in her investigative report of Time Inc. layoffs…

The New York Times

Katharine Q. Seelye

The cuts, including some at Sports Illustrated and Fortune, were announced at each magazine individually this morning.

The 172 editorial jobs eliminated represent more than 5 percent of Time Inc.’s editorial staff of 3,300 around the world. Taking the company as a whole, the 289 jobs eliminated amount to about 2.6 percent of the company’s 11,000-strong work force. Taking into account the 530 employees who work for other magazines that are being sold, including Field & Stream and Parenting, Time’s total work force will fall to about 10,500. Time Inc. cut 600 jobs last year.

The retrenchment comes as Time Inc., the nation’s biggest magazine publisher, seeks to expand its branded properties on the Web, where the company sees its future. - The New York Times

I’m not sure that bloggers like myself could exist without dedicated writers from any media source you or I could think of. We tend to quote many a main stream media publishers with every post. Can one exist without the other? I tend to think not.
Bloggers are becoming a point of view given any story out there because we are telling it from someone not on the payroll of any media source. Our opinions are just our opinion. Our posts are from the heart and how we feel about any issue. Our spin as bloggers is just that, our spin.

My personal prediction for Time Inc. is they will move online with a full force to overcome the bloggers and sell the stories they want to put out there. It doesn’t work that way but I give them credit for recognizing that the people just don’t buy the main stream media line of opinion. Something about the corporate connections loses the credibility behind the message for the common internet blog reader. People trust that a blogger is telling you the reader an opinion that is in mesh with your own opinions. That is why blogs like this one and others are such a large part of the peoples choices for information on the world they live in.

Papamoka

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