On Tuesday, ABC News President David Westin sent a memo to employees announcing job cuts across the entire division. (Full memo on paidContent)
The scale of cuts is fairly large — close to 25% and it appears as if many employees were expecting it. As a former employee of the division (in 2007), I won’t discuss details, but I would like to highlight one statement from Mr. Westin’s email:
1. In newsgathering, we intend to dramatically expand our use of digital journalists. We have proven that this model works at various locations around the world. We believe we can take it much further;
As someone who played a (very) small role in the 2008 Presidential Elections coverage and worked on digital reporting preparedness, I whole-heartedly support this statement.
Revenue streams and cost structures have changed considerably over the past 5 years. With the increase in web-connected devices, consumers are viewing content differently. And, content creators are being forced to adapt to these models. For example: spending $10,000 on a camera today to produce web-shows is not an efficient use of capital. One can achieve similar quality from the newly released video DSLR cameras. If you’re a news organization, definitely explore the recently announced Canon T2i or the Canon 7D.
This is a trend that will continue for the foreseeable future and has been expected for a long time. For many people, such news is often receieved with shock and disappointment. Many professionals have been adamant that cost equals quality. Unfortunately, with new technology, cost is no longer directly related to quality.
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