The PR gods giveth and taketh away. Two major publishing companies reportedly are making strategic moves that will both expand and contract the pitching opportunities at some of the nation’s most popular media outlets.
In the first case, Tribune Publishing—which publishes the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and other dailies—is looking to reduce editorial costs by $10 million, and to do that roughly 80 staffers might be let go. That’s according to Poynter. Any staff cuts will be precipitated by newsroom reductions via buyouts.
The cuts at Tribune mean PR execs will have to be more pointillist in their story pitches to the LA Times and other Tribune titles because there will be fewer editors and reporters to listen to them.
Any job cuts Tribune’s media properties will spur the need for so-called branded content, as newspapers reconfigure how they’re going to fill their inventory with fewer resources in-house.
Yet, despite ongoing cutbacks, running branded content is still a tough sell editorially among many newsrooms.
In the second case, the Wall Street Journal will beef up its Money and Investing and Greater New York sections, in print and online, and launch a product in the United Kingdom, according to a memo obtained by Politico.
Journal editor Gerard Baker wrote that the new Money and Investing section will feature “faster and more lively real-time commentary on global markets and deeper analysis of the powerful trends moving the world of business and finance.”
The Journal’s Greater New York section will be updated to include a wider range of news and features, the memo said.
The Journal recently completed cut newsroom costs by eliminating jobs and operations that were no longer seen as essential to its core mission while creating new positions and products referred to in the memo, according to Politico.
Still, the pending editorial moves increase the opportunities for PR pros and communicators to get their stories and/or mentions of their clients inside the venerable media title.
While trying to get a story into the Journal is like nailing Jell-O to the wall, expanding certain editorial content gives PR pros some additional lanes to get their message into the highly circulated title (2.3 million total average circulation, print and online). WSJ is owned by News Corp.
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The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
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