Sustainability
By Mitch Berg
Minnesota Public Radio announced what amounts to a fairly sweeping set of layoffs in the newsroom yesterday:
The identities of the laid off staff members have not been confirmed, but a series of tweets by MPR Newscut blogger Bob Collins Thursday night suggest that they are:
Newscaster Beth Kidd; higher ed reporter Alex Friedrich; politics reporter Catharine Richert; arts reporter Chris Roberts; producer Emily Kaiser; photographers Jeffrey Thompson and Jennifer Simonson; reporter/producer Nikki Tundel; and editor/reporter David Cazares. (List compiled by the Business Journal).
Waxing purely editorially here – it appears that the House that Keillor Built is running into the same buzz saw the rest of the radio industry ran into 6–7 years ago, and that the old Big Three broadcast operations have been wrestling with for a decade; the fact that the audience is splintering, drawn to other media spawned by new technology.
The amazing factoid? I’ve always known that Minnesota Public Radio news was a massive operation, certainly in scale with the rest of the be behemoth that is MPR, filling out the huge building on 7th and Cedar in downtown St. Paul like it does. Even I had had no idea how huge the newsroom was; the nine layoffs amounted to 13% of the newsroom; that meant MPR’s newsroom alone was somewhere north of 70 people.
It’s disappointing – and a telling – to see among the nine above a number of a good, solid journalists losing their jobs, while Keri Miller just keeps prattling away.
PS: On the other hand, assuming “producer Emily Kaiser” is the same one who used to “write” at the City Pages…
…well, it’s bad karma to kibitz about people who just got whacked. I’ve been there way too many times myself.
Best of luck, everyone.
August 19th, 2015 at 6:27 am
I know that Sesame Street is a TV show on PBS, but since they are tied together, I wonder how much impact the decision to move to HBO had on these staff reductions?
August 19th, 2015 at 6:37 am
Purely speculating here, but I’m going to guess they’re both results from the same cause; there’s just not as much money in broadcasting anymore.
August 19th, 2015 at 7:21 am
I wonder if podcasts will become a larger component of their business model.
August 19th, 2015 at 7:23 am
Same thing with Symphony Orchestras. The generation that felt like it had to “give back the community” is dying off and the next generation feels like they “give back” through massive tax bills.
August 19th, 2015 at 7:25 am
NOT JUST ONE PHOTOGRAPHER, BUT TWO! How many are left?
August 19th, 2015 at 7:44 am
They’ll all be at MinnPost eventually.
August 19th, 2015 at 8:55 am
Lucky for Bob Collins there’s still room in the budget for a blogger. I wonder what that job pays.
August 19th, 2015 at 8:57 am
NOT JUST ONE PHOTOGRAPHER, BUT TWO! How many are left?
[Snicker] because the one think a ratio station needs is photographers.
August 19th, 2015 at 9:01 am
Completely off topic, does anyone else notice that a lot of Minnesotans call them FER-TOG-RAPHERS.
But nobody calls their products a FER-TA-GRAPH.
August 19th, 2015 at 9:40 am
American English is nothing if not inconsistent.
August 19th, 2015 at 10:01 am
I wonder if podcasts will become a larger component of their business model
Lots of writing on the subject lately. Yes.
August 19th, 2015 at 10:07 am
because the one think a ratio station needs is photographers
All media is becoming multimedia these days.
But the fact that they employed full-time photogs surprised me. I’ve seen their reporters shooting pix at stories, and I figured that was it.
They did do some great digital photography.
How big is their newsroom? With Chris Roberts gone, they’re down to just 2-3 arts reporters – Euan Kerr (whom I replaced as a phone screener at KSTP), Marianne Combs and, I think, Stephanie Curtis. I
With Catherine Richert gone (she’s an excellent reporter, although I didn’t care much for the “Poligraph” feature), they’re “down” to Tim Pugmire, Mark Zdechlek (sp?), Tom Scheck, and I think one other.
I’d be amazed if WCCO-AM’s entire newsroom had seven people anymore.
August 19th, 2015 at 10:09 am
Apparently they didnt meet their fundraising goals? Just think if they actually had commercials they’d probably be able to keep the staff. Not seeing as many ‘I make MPR happen’ bumper stickers anymore. Are people finally coming around ot just ashamed that the donate it and only do it out of liberal guilt?
August 19th, 2015 at 10:10 am
They’ll all be at MinnPost eventually
Or “Bring Me The News”.
Or one non-profit or another.
August 19th, 2015 at 10:44 am
I know Reagan’s birthday is an official SITD holiday, as it should be.
Is there an official day for SITDers to honor The Iron Lady? She gave us several outstanding quips, the one suiting this occasion:
” . . . eventually, you run out of Other People’s Money.”
August 19th, 2015 at 11:02 am
JD
oct 13th so…Columbus-Thatcher Day?
August 19th, 2015 at 12:42 pm
Is there an official day for SITDers to honor The Iron Lady? She gave us several outstanding quips, the one suiting this occasion
There is now.
August 19th, 2015 at 1:02 pm
I’m guessing if Bob Collins got shit canned, the morning asswipe on the lefty, tin-can radio network would find himself with a sidekick in no time.
“Hey Bob, you hear what Palin said today”
“Hyuk, hyuk! Those teabaggers!”
August 19th, 2015 at 4:11 pm
I remember when one of the big retailers HQ’d here started laying off corporate staff, Bob Collins started tweeting about ‘workers’ losing their jobs. The SJW tweets stopped when some wag (who beat me to it) pointed out that it was just some ‘suits’ that got canned.
Got to love Bob though; he’s a class warrior who owns his own airplane. I aspire to be like him some day.
August 19th, 2015 at 4:55 pm
“Hey! It turns out that we can avoid laying anyone off if senior management and on-air personalities take a 10% pay cut! Show of hands, please!
“Anyone? Is that a hand up over there?”