Oregonian to close bureaus, cut newsroom staff
by Steve, July 10th, 2008Sources have revealed that the Oregonian is preparing for a major round of cost-cutting, which will include closing all but two bureaus (south and west). Buyout offers are expected in the fall, with the goal of a cutting 50 positions company-wide, including 30 in the newsroom.
As the paper struggles with declining readership and ad revenue along with the rest of the daily print journalism industry, it is amazing that they still refuse to enter the digital media market in a serious way, as every other mainstream media outlet in Portland has. Blame it on their parent company, Newhouse, which has kept all of its papers at arms length from their family of sister companies (like OregonLive) that operate on the Web and publish selected content from the papers.
This kind of stodgy, tentative relationship to the changing media landscape is quickly making the O a living dinosaur.
