Tribune Co. Brass: Too Many Journos, Too Much Content

Tribune Co. can do without large numbers of news employees without losing much content, said Randy Michaels, the company’s chief operating officer, during a conference call with analysts.

That means that the papers will be employing fewer journalists, and the changes will be happening quickly, Michaels said. The company looked at the column inches of news produced by each reporter and by each newspaper’s staff, and found a wide variation, writes The New York Times. For example, Los Angeles Times journalists produce 51 pages of news content, while The Baltimore Sun and The Hartford Courant journos create more than 300 pages, Michaels pointed out.

James O’Shea, the editor who was recently fired from The Los Angeles Times for resisting newsroom budget cuts, said the statements show that Michaels misunderstands how newspapers work.

Tribune Co. plans to cut the amount of news it publishes in a bid to hit a 50-50 split between ads and news pages. The initiative will result in the elimination of 500 pages of news a week across the company’s 12 papers.

Tribune Co.’s new owner, Sam Zell, wrote in a note to employees that Tribune papers will be redesigned, with an eye toward providing more maps, graphics, lists, rankings and stats.

The company also plans to sell the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field.