The Chronicle is laying off 12% of its staff.
You know, there's probably printing equipment sitting idle all across the country. Some of it in Houston, in fact.
I wonder if that's enough to put together a decent startup newspaper without all the liberal editorial bullshit.
Sad to see Rosie Ruiz among the casualties, but that startup at least would have someone willing to kick Frank Wilson's ass every now and then when he's being a double-dealing jackass.
Comments (2)
You know, that is a great question.
I wonder how much it really would cost to put out a weekly or bi-weekly rag. I bet a few of our blogger buddies would jump on board (not telling you to do it, just thinking out loud).
If someone fired one up, would you consider writing for it?
Maybe even an underground USA today where several cities write the same stuff and distribute it over the web so each city has the same paper.
Now I have things to mull over.
Posted by Houston | March 24, 2009 2:00 PM
Posted on March 24, 2009 14:00
Greetings -- while starting up a competitive newspaper is a nice thought, it takes a lot of time, money and manpower.
I'm in Dallas, TX (and we're having our own fun here at the Dallas Morning News with layoffs). But some years ago, my hubby and I decided to see what it would take to start a community newspaper in one of the suburbs.
Getting subscribers on board is the easy part. And there isn't a lack of writers out there willing to work for such publications. What isn't so easy is selling advertising (which is what keeps the paper going). There are also print costs and circulation costs.
We won't even go into the "incidentals" (like office equipiment -- even if you're doing this remotely, you need a computer or three that can support some pretty intense graphic software and someone who understands how to put the paper together so it makes sense).
Back in 1998, when we were planning our venture, the start-up costs were something like $75,000 -- just to get the first issue out the door. And this was without a storefront office (the plan was to get the first few issues published from our home office, then try to move into leased space, but it never happened).
I imagine costs have gone up by now.
In our situation, we had a lot of very willing subscribers who wanted us to do well. We had the writers. We also had a gung-ho salesperson. The advertising community wasn't as enthusiastic, though, so this thing never really got off the ground.
This is why so many papers are going the online route and are cutting back on their print folks. Newsprint costs money, ink costs money, circulation costs money, etc., etc., etc.
Posted by TexSorter | March 27, 2009 8:43 AM
Posted on March 27, 2009 08:43