Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Stop the press. Literally.

Some 15,000 journalists have lost their jobs in 2009 so far, according to media industry watcher News Cycle, recycled in the Huffington Post where most of the deluded bloggers work for free exposure, accelerating the demise of newspapers.)

News Cycle blog calculates that, so far this year, "15,093 people have received their pink slips or have [opted] into a buyout package in the newspaper industry."

And December has a couple more weeks to run. The blog notes that more layoffs are expected at the Los Angeles Times this month, and New York Times layoffs loom as too few employees accepted voluntary buyout offers.

News Cycle breaks down the job losses by month:

November -- 293 people.
October -- 375 people.
September -- 347 people.
August -- 425 people.
July -- 2,505 people.
June -- 318 people.
May -- 1,084 people.
April -- 1,350 people.
March -- 3,943 people.
February -- 1,492 people.
January -- 2,256 people.

HuffPo adds that Ground Report's Rachel Sterne is able to find a silver lining in these numbers: since July, she notes, layoffs have slowed.

"Based on the News Cycle figures," Sterne writes, "the end of the first and second quarters in 2009 saw the most bloodshed. From August onward, numbers dropped significantly, and the rate of layoffs stayed flat."

And then there's next year.

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