Elephant Diaries: The Revenue Problem

Heartbreaking words by Josh Brodesky inside the Arizona Daily Star newsroom last week as another round of layoffs came:

The cuts filled the newsroom with an eerie stillness accented only by tears and typing. The next day’s paper still had to be put out.

I think most staffers knew a day like Thursday would come, but that doesn’t make it any easier. The combined readership of newspapers in print and online is at an all-time high. But partly because of the rotten economy, advertising sales are down.

What management has said is this: We don’t have a readership problem, we have a revenue problem.