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When it's over, up to 25 percent of the news division could be slashed, or 300 to 400 staffers. They'll start off by offering buyouts and then resort to layoffs, if necessary. More than just cuts, the network will mount a full-scale restructuring in which staffers will be required to produce and shoot their own stories as "one-man bands." Newspapers are requiring their people to do much the same thing. From the LAT:
By streamlining news-gathering operations now, officials hope to stave off repeated cuts in the coming years. They argue that a smaller news division does not mean a less competitive one. With technological advancements such as hand-held digital cameras, the news division can now dispatch one person to cover a story that once required a correspondent, producer and two-person crew.
*From the NYT:
In a memorandum to staffers, the ABC News president David Westin said the news division was undergoing a "fundamental transformation," one that would result in a leaner, smaller news division. "The time has come to re-think how we do what we are doing," Mr. Westin wrote.
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted
until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.