United States

VNU, THE PARENT OF NIELSEN Media Research, ACNielsen and a variety of trade publications, Friday began part of a massive layoff that is expected to reduce its total workforce by about 4,100 jobs, or nearly 10% of its 42,000 worldwide organization during 2007. The cuts were first made known via pink slips handed out among some top editors of its trade publications. On Friday, entertainment industry...

Welcome to corporate America, journos! Reporters at The Washington Post will now be ranked with a multiple-choice job-performance assessment each year. Accompanying an annual written evaluation, each reporter will be described as: “frequently exceeds expectations,” “sometimes exceeds expectations,” “meets expectations,” “sometimes fails to meet expectations,” or “frequently does not meet...

The Pulitzer Prize Board has established new rules allowing newspapers to submit a full array of online material such as databases, interactive graphics, and streaming video for its journalism awards. An assortment of Web 2.0 elements will now be permitted in all awards except for the competition's two photography categories, which will continue to restrict entries to still images. "This board...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The largest union at Philadelphia's two biggest daily newspapers is planning to launch an online newspaper to compete with the company Web site if workers go on strike after midnight on Thursday. Employees from The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News would contribute local content that will be edited and posted online, said Stu Bykofsky, a Daily News columnist...

The St. Paul Pioneer Press will eliminate the equivalent of 40 full-time jobs after seeing ad revenue drop in key categories, a trend that accelerated in recent months. The jobs will be cut through a combination of attrition, buyouts and layoffs. The newsroom, the paper's single largest department, will cut the equivalent of 20 full-time positions. The other cuts will be spread across the...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The editor of Philadelphia's largest newspaper will step down at the end of the year as the company's new owners seek contract concessions, including deep newsroom cuts, in response to falling circulation and advertising revenue. Philadelphia Inquirer editor Amanda Bennett will be replaced by Bill Marimow, a former Baltimore Sun editor and Inquirer city editor who is now...

MCLEAN, Va., Nov. 7 (UPI) -- The largest newspaper chain in the United States, Gannett Co., based in McLean, Va., has said it will incorporate "citizen journalism" into its papers. The company, which publishes USA Today, the Des Moines Register, the Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press and other papers, said it would also begin searching for stories at online discussion forums and create online calendar...

NEW YORK, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Employees at San Francisco Bay-Area newspapers owned by MediaNews Group Inc. should expect layoffs in the near future because of poor advertising and changes to their business, according to a publisher's memo. The papers, owned by Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc., include the Oakland Tribune, the Hayward Daily Review and the San Mateo County Times. MediaNews also owns...

NEW YORK, Oct 4 (Reuters) - The average number of monthly visitors to U.S. newspaper Web sites rose by nearly a third in the first half of 2006, a study released on Wednesday said, though print readership at some larger U.S. newspapers fell. The study, released by the Newspaper Association of America, underscores the Internet's importance to papers beset by falling circulation and advertising...

Dean Baquet is taking a stand. The editor of the Los Angeles Times is putting his career on the line, telling his corporate bosses at the Tribune Co. that he cannot abide deeper cutbacks in a newsroom that has already lost more than 200 jobs since the Chicago conglomerate bought the paper six years ago. If the company keeps slashing away, colleagues say, Baquet is prepared to leave. "I think it's...