Thursday, June 9, 2016

Directory illustrates the dramatic decline in the newspaper's staff over the last 25 years



In 1991, the Mobile Press Register phone directory listed more than 60 editors, reporters, photographers, and other staffers connected with news gathering.

In 2016, about a dozen people in Mobile carry on news operations. 

The Press Register is now fully integrated with other Newhouse-owned newspapers in Alabama and Louisiana: the Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. What that means is that the newspapers are edited and designed at central locations. Support functions such as human resources for the newspapers have also been combined, reduced, and centralized.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that employment in the newspaper industry overall has declined by 60 percent over the past 25 years, from 458,000 in 1990 to 183,000 in March 2016.

The Newhouse newspapers, which are leading the charge into the digital age, seem to have reduced jobs much deeper than other papers in the nation.


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