Link wrap: Seattle PI, doom, gloom etc

PaidContent has an early follow-up on how the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is doing since it ditched print and went web-only. The writer suggests it could be struggling to find enough content after cutting its staff by 80 per cent.

Clearly, the P-I‘s online experiment is still in the early days, but the company itself has fanned heady expectations: A day after the new Seattlepi.com launched, Hearst Spokesman Paul Luthringer told the Associated Press that the company was encouraged by the website’s traffic on its first day, when it got 1.9 million page views. The dirty little secret: a good chunk of that traffic probably went to content created by staffers who had already left.

Also from PaidContent, news that music magazine Blender is going online-only:

Music-reviews mag Blender will cease print publication with its April issue, though it will maintain its separate web presence. A rep for Blender’s parent, Alpha Media Group, noted that the website has had a different editorial focus than the print version. About 30 staffers will lose their jobs as a result of the changes. The mag, which initially gave the more established rival Rolling Stone quite a run when it was brought to the U.S. from the U.K. in 2001. In a sense, Blender is going back to its electronic roots. It was originally conceived as a CD-ROM magazine when it was created in 1994 by Dennis Publishing, which sold off Blender and Maxim to Alpha about two years ago.

From the doom and gloom files:

ReadWriteWeb on the worsening woes of the US newspaper industry:

The U.S. newspaper industry was already facing numerous challenges before the economy took a nosedive, but the latest data from the Newspaper Association of America shows that the current economic climate has only exacerbated the already dire state of the American newspaper industry. Specifically, total newspaper advertising revenue fell 16.6% in 2008. Classifieds advertising, which is under a lot of pressure from online ventures like Craigslist, fell almost 30%, and real estate classifieds fell 38%.

PaidContent on the WashingtonPost offering another round of redundancies:

The Washington Post announced its fourth round of buyouts in five years today, but this time the company is specifically targeting employees whose jobs don’t need to be replaced. Last year, the paper said, 231 employees accepted buyouts, reducing the company’s earnings by $79.8 million. The new buyouts will be spread across a range of departments, including the newsroom, production, circulation, advertising, and IT.

Silicon Alley Insider on the latest New York Times layoffs:

Along with cutting newsroom salaries 5%, the New York Times (NYT) cut 100 jobs on the business side of the company today. Here’s the memo:

Dear Colleagues,

In a note just distributed, Arthur and Janet informed us that the company, regrettably, must take even more aggressive steps to control our costs. Clearly, our course is not getting any easier. The recession, especially the deteriorating advertising climate, is exacting a bitter toll, despite all that we have already done to reduce spending.

This morning, we notified about 100 employees on the business side of The Times that their jobs were being eliminated. We thank these dedicated colleagues for all they have contributed to The Times over the years.