Study: Staffers Vindicated, Newsroom Cuts Affect Quality, Circ.

A study released Wednesday seems to prove that the practice of reducing newsroom staff in order to save money may be misguided.

The authors of the University of Missouri-Columbia study, based on 10 years of financial data, say that the U.S. newspapers that spend money on their newsrooms will make more money, writes Reuters. News quality affects profit more than spending on circulation, advertising and other areas of the business, they say.

As editors are certain to be happy to hear, “If you lower the amount of money spent in the newsroom, then pretty soon the news product becomes so bad that you begin to lose money,” Esther Thorson, advertising professor and associate dean for graduate studies at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, is quoted as saying.

“Until recently, people have been doing it because the results looked good to investors on Wall Street, but it’s… ignoring the long-term aspects,” marketing professor and study co-author Murali Mantrala says.

In the last year, the Washington Post shed 80 newsroom jobs, the St. Paul Pioneer Press cut 40 positions, the Cleveland Plain Dealer lost 17 percent of its newsroom and the New York Times is cutting 125 jobs from its New England Media Group. Even the owner of the Philadelphia papers, a businessman who bought them from McClatchy and hoped to avoid having to make such cuts, is expected to lay off about 70 newsroom employees.

Last year, Los Angeles Times editor and publisher were both let go after publicly refusing to make the newsroom cuts demanded of them by parent Tribune Co.