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Friday, May 18, 2007

Chronicle Cans Newsroom Staff


It must have been interesting to live in the final decades of the 19th century. One would have seen the demise of the stagecoach and the blazing introduction of the Iron Horse, as railroad locomotives were once known. Stagecoach travel dwindled and before long the stagecoach was history. About the only place one can see an original stagecoach today in San Francisco is at the Wells Fargo History Museum at 420 Montgomery Street. Admission is free, by the way.

It is even more interesting to be alive in the first decade of the 21st century. We are changing our world on an unprecidented scale. New technologies are being introduced and many of the old and familiar elements of society are disappearing. One of those disappearing elements is the great American newspaper.

Hearst Corporation, which owns the San Francisco Chronicle, has announced it plans to eliminate 80 union jobs and 20 management positions out of a newsroom with 400 employees. Nearly a quarter of the Chronicle's entire news staff will be sent packing.

Financial losses continue to build at the Chronicle despite the newspaper's efforts to be competitive through its SFGate web site. Not many years ago Hearst bought the Chronicle from the deYoung family and sold the Examiner to the Fang family. The Fangs promptly ran the Examiner into the ground and turned it into a cheap tabloid, which it remains today.

Now it is the Chronicle's turn to enter the slow death spiral that has been followed by so many other major American newspapers. Stagecoaches and newspapers - memories of the way it used to be.
on Friday, May 18, 2007

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