Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Where Will All the Writers GO?

This has been a ghastly week for layoffs affecting many fellow writers, with Media Bistro reporting an uncommon number of headlines about media layoffs: Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia lays-off 100 this year ; NBCU global will lay off 3% of its workforce, or 500 jobs ; Universal Pictures announced it will reduce headcount by about 3% ; “Nobody saw it coming,” but Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has released “a lot” of employees from the publishing house ; Variety has folded its D.C. Bureau (just one job, but still, how can Variety Not have a D.C. correspondent?); Simon & Schuster has eliminated 35 positions; The Chicago Tribune is considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy ; The Miami Herald is up for sale; Ogilvy may be in for a 2009 bloodbath that dwarfs its 2008 50 to 100-person purge, with New York management now looking at letting 200 to 250 staffers go after the holidaze; and, finally -- at least for today -- NPR will lay off 7 percent of its workforce.

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