ABC News announcing layoffs

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

ABC News to cut half its domestic correspondents, close bricks-and-mortar bureaus

As part of the deep cuts announced this week at ABC News, the network plans to close all of its physical bureaus around the country except Washington and halve the number of its domestic correspondents.

ABC News President David Westin confirmed in an interview Friday that the network's ranks of bureau correspondents, which currently number several dozen, would be cut in half and be replaced with "digital" journalists who would be expected to shoot and edit their own stories.

Although the network will keep a minimal staff presence in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and Boston, it will shut down its bricks-and-mortar bureaus there and ask its remaining employees to work from the local affiliates. The Washington bureau will remain open, but its size will be substantially reduced.

The mood was grim in Los Angeles, the largest bureau outside of Washington. The 40-plus staffers were told this week that only a few producers would remain and only two correspondents would be assigned to cover the West, down from a total of six who work out of Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Many functions that had been done out of the bureau will be handled by a “logistics desk” in New York. Demoralized employees, who did not want to be quoted by name for fear of losing their jobs, said the severity of the cuts would make it nearly impossible to swarm major stories such as the perennial wildfires in Southern California.

Westin said the network would cope with the reduced manpower on breaking news stories by hiring freelance crews and making use of its expanded team of digital journalists, staffers who would be able to handle multiple tasks. Although a majority of stories will still be covered by traditional four-person crews, Westin said he expected a “plurality” of pieces would be done by people shooting and editing their own video. The digital journalists will be stationed in two-person teams around the country.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainm...washington.html

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

variable staffing.. it's what all the cool kids are doing

[John and Camie 39]

Horrible. I was laid off from Disney a year ago. It was a bloodbath. Those people are in for a hell of a bad day.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/business.../01network.html

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/business.../01network.html

"ABC News is making no secret about what is behind the sweeping staff cuts it now faces: raw survival instinct."

I guess soon there will two news agencies: FOX-News, and everybody else that is left with a job.

Edited March 1, 2010 by Lone Ranger

[Peikko 1,575]

Fox news is all that's needed, after all, it's fair and balanced.