Newsroom meeting with editor Steve Smith

Staff brownbag meeting was today at noon. Editor Steve Smith went through some industry realities, and made some announcements - including plans to aggressively overhaul existing humans/schedules/tasks/management to more effectively feed different platforms such as online, radio and mobile. Senior management hopes to have a restructuring plan in mind by Labor Day.

“Print will not sustain our newsrooms, and if it doesn’t sustain our newsrooms, then it can’t sustain our journalism,” Smith said. He explained the idea of having a “niche” publication, in the sense that S-R will probably have to become one. By “niche”: Smith and assistant managing editor Carla Savalli think S-R may be headed toward a smaller newspaper, targeted to engaged/smart readers, possibly fewer than 7 days a week, probably narrower page width, and being part of a more diversified series of revenue sources for the S-R as an information company.

The industry, the economy, and other variables are bringing S-R print circulation down regardless of the news content of the newspaper, Smith said. He also went through some statistics for print and online, emphasizing that S-R should give people the information they want on the platform that they want it, as an information company.

In short, there are weeks until possible job loss, he said. “We make this work, or some of us won’t be here at the end of 2008.”

But one staffer asked, how do we do more platforms with fewer people, especially if for example the Online revenue has not yet matched the Print edition revenue amounts? “For the promise of future revenue,” he said. His strategy right now is in diversifying the investment and to keep trucking until the revenue grows.