LA Times Interactive GM Robertson Barrett says his operations aren’t part of the just-announced newsroom mandate to cut about 85 jobs. In fact, he explains, “We’re growing and recently added several people, including a new executive editor, managing director of interactive sales (from AOL), a new head of production and a great product manager from NYTD. Jeff Johnson made the point in communicating with Times staff today that we’re investing in our growth businesses, with a special focus on online.
In addition to Joel Sappell, recently announced as executive editor, Interactive, additions to the staff include Juliana Jaoudi, managing director – interactive sales, former director of entertainment sales at AOL who will be working broadly across the LAT on print-interactive sales strategy; Jason Oberfest, from Blast Radius, director of product strategy and his staff including Inger Lund, a product manager from New York Times Digital; and Scott Dunagan, director of production, who held the same post at Y&R in LA and is building a staff.
Update: The Chicago Tribune will cut fewer than 100 jobs, according to a memo from publisher David Hiller posted on Romenesko: “We, along with the rest of the media industry, have never faced greater fundamental changes than we are currently seeing in media technology and consumer and advertiser behavior. … We want to invest for growth at the same time that the revenue in many parts of our business is coming under increasing pressure. The only real solution is to find costs to reduce where possible and to use the savings to help fund investment.”
– He wrote about the need for innovation and investing in Tribune websites, adding, “There also may be some things we should stop doing, or do only on our websites instead of in print.”
– “Online, our goal is to be the leading news provider in Chicago, just as we are in print. That will require growing our 24/7 news reporting efforts and retooling our organization to fit that continuous cycle, and we have plans for doing that.”
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