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NEWSPAPERS DIDN'T ALWAYS NEED SUCH LARGE STAFFS
JACK SHAFER, SLATE - The connection between quality and head count would
seem intuitive, but a dip into the microfilm archives of the New York
Times and Washington Post shows that decent newspapers have been
produced with far fewer hands.
In the last three or four decades, newsroom staffs have ballooned almost
everywhere. Today's Times employs about 1,200 newsroom staffers and the
Post about 800. But 35 years ago, each produced a quality daily with
about half that number, according to Leon V. Sigal's 1973 study,
Reporters and Officials: The Organization and Politics of Newsmaking.
Sigal found that the Times employed 500 "reporters, editors, and
copyreaders" and the Post about 400 at the time.
Some of the expansion came in the establishment of distant bureaus. The
Times had 15 national bureaus and 28 foreign capital bureaus in 1972.
Today it has 11 national bureaus and 26 foreign. The 1972 Post had four
national bureaus and 11 overseas. Today there are about a half-dozen
domestic and 19 foreign bureaus.
As you unspool summer of 1972 Post microfilm, you're struck by the
relative reliance on stories from wire services and other newspapers. To
pick a representative issue, I read the July 6, 1972, edition closely.
It had two wire stories and one from the Manchester Guardian on Page
One. The Post sports page even delegated coverage of the Baltimore
Orioles, Washington's nominal big-league team after the departure of the
Senators to Texas, to a wire service.
The Post of yore ran about half the number of comics, and its TV
listings were limited to a box of five local stations compared to the
full page containing almost 100 channels today. Style had not yet
morphed into a full daily feature section. A thin feature about Emmylou
Harris stops 7 inches after its jump from the front of Style, and a wire
story about Jacqueline Onassis winning a lawsuit over a paparazzi also
played on the front. . .
The Post gave about the same emphasis to national and foreign coverage
in 1972 as it does today. Although the average Post story from 1972 is
probably 25 percent shorter than today's, the national and foreign
stories I read from the July 6, 1972, edition Post don't skimp on the
day's events. . .
By my personal measure, the national and foreign news published in the
summer of 1972 by the Times and Post matches the current product, even
though it is less "featurey." That both papers did fine work with half
the current manpower should encourage serious readers-'even though it
may depress journalists.
http://www.slate.com/id/2169763/pagenum/all/#page_start
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NEWSPAPERS DIDN'T ALWAYS NEED SUCH LARGE STAFFS
JACK SHAFER, SLATE - The connection between quality and head count would
seem intuitive, but a dip into the microfilm archives of the New York
Times and Washington Post shows that decent newspapers have been
produced with far fewer hands.
In the last three or four decades, newsroom staffs have ballooned almost
everywhere. Today's Times employs about 1,200 newsroom staffers and the
Post about 800. But 35 years ago, each produced a quality daily with
about half that number, according to Leon V. Sigal's 1973 study,
Reporters and Officials: The Organization and Politics of Newsmaking.
Sigal found that the Times employed 500 "reporters, editors, and
copyreaders" and the Post about 400 at the time.
Some of the expansion came in the establishment of distant bureaus. The
Times had 15 national bureaus and 28 foreign capital bureaus in 1972.
Today it has 11 national bureaus and 26 foreign. The 1972 Post had four
national bureaus and 11 overseas. Today there are about a half-dozen
domestic and 19 foreign bureaus.
As you unspool summer of 1972 Post microfilm, you're struck by the
relative reliance on stories from wire services and other newspapers. To
pick a representative issue, I read the July 6, 1972, edition closely.
It had two wire stories and one from the Manchester Guardian on Page
One. The Post sports page even delegated coverage of the Baltimore
Orioles, Washington's nominal big-league team after the departure of the
Senators to Texas, to a wire service.
The Post of yore ran about half the number of comics, and its TV
listings were limited to a box of five local stations compared to the
full page containing almost 100 channels today. Style had not yet
morphed into a full daily feature section. A thin feature about Emmylou
Harris stops 7 inches after its jump from the front of Style, and a wire
story about Jacqueline Onassis winning a lawsuit over a paparazzi also
played on the front. . .
The Post gave about the same emphasis to national and foreign coverage
in 1972 as it does today. Although the average Post story from 1972 is
probably 25 percent shorter than today's, the national and foreign
stories I read from the July 6, 1972, edition Post don't skimp on the
day's events. . .
By my personal measure, the national and foreign news published in the
summer of 1972 by the Times and Post matches the current product, even
though it is less "featurey." That both papers did fine work with half
the current manpower should encourage serious readers-'even though it
may depress journalists.
http://www.slate.com/id/2169763/pagenum/all/#page_start
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