Holy crap, who would have thought the real world (you know the one of falling newspaper circulations and no ad revenue) would have entered the Pravda of Japan, the Daily Yomiuri. Well, the hard times have unofficially hit. Here's what Our Man knows:
1. The boss has been told to trim staff by 25%
2. The paper will be going to one edition in April from the current four.
3. About 10 Yomiuri staff will be shifted out to other parts of the company and 10 contract employees have volunteered to quit.
4. The latest ABC figures for the Daily Yomiuri are down 4,500 to 30,093, probably due to airlines stopping taking the paper for free (if you can't even give it away, what does that tell you about the future of papers?)
5. With only a handful of foreigners left to mop up, Our Man can't wait to see the quality of the writing this April.
6. The poor deluded folk at the Japan Times seem to think there will be a bump in their circulation, and maybe there will be. But, since the Times' ABC figures were down 2,000 to 33,814, the smart money has to be on short-term outlook: brief respite, long-term: YOU IS TOAST.
On a personal note, Our Man has to say he's sorry for the good journos who staff the place, and would heartily advise those left to TAKE THE MONEY WHILE THEY STILL HAVE SOME.
And to all those who find themselves on the other side of the newspaper fold, Our Man can assure you life goes on and is even better than you can possibly imagine, just apply the skills you have learnt to something that pays better (Lord knows that ain't blogging).
Or else, you'll be stuck with this lot - the new Japan Times in-crowd - as the only way to pay the rent. Unless you have the keys to the fancy dress cupboard, you may want to consider a new career.
Pic shows old-school journo looking for jobs in the classifieds. Remember them? (Classifieds or jobs? - ed.)
6 comments:
We have the Daily Yomiuri at home, but only because my wife uses it for English reading practice. We have a Japanese paper as well (different publisher) for reading actual news and commentary.
I felt embarrassed just watching that JT Tokyo video...so sad.
The JT could save (a lot/some/a little/ a tiny tiny tiny tiny) amount of money if they axed their columnists - PLEASE!
I am cedrame according to the word verification.
Ha ha ha! The Ministry of Truth goes bankrupt!
I have subscribed to The Daily Yomiuri for more than 20 years, and have been very happy with it because I use it to scan the news to bring things to my attention. If something sounds interesting, I google it.
TDY brought really important things like Skype to my attention years before other people knew what it was. That alone has been worth thousands of dollars to me directly, and then I went and taught dozens of family and friends what Skype is, so it has easily been worth $100,000 so far. Even though I read dozens of online sites daily, it is still amazing to me how many things I did not catch that appear on the pages of TDY. And then of course, there is The Piranha Club (Ernie) and Calvin and Hobbs.
When I talk to many people, including university professors and doctors, it is just amazing what they don't know simply because they do not ever look at a newspaper. ("Miners in Chile? What miners?" "Depression? We are having depression?" I kid you not. College educated people and people with PhDs have actually said those things to me.)
TDY has been a superb tool for bringing things to my attention. Will be very sad to see it go.
Dear Most Recent Anonymous Comment-Leaver,
You make good points. There are worse papers than the Daily Yomiuri, though there are many better.
Personally, Our Man prefers the Japan Times, but that's irrelevant. Any paper is better than no paper (Murdoch papers excepted, naturally) and even the bad papers keep good people employed.
But don't worry, there are no plans to ax the DY. It's just been downsized.
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