Today, business network CNBC died, but only of humiliation. Cosmo, on the other hand, lost a part of itself, and newspapers were brutalized. The day in media death (tempered by some good news!) after the jump.
• The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reducing its workforce by approximately 12 percent and cutting the wages of its remaining staffers. Publisher Gary Wortel pinned the layoffs on “unprecedented revenue declines due to the economic recession,” which is kind of becoming to newspapers what “exhaustion” is to celebrities, only true. [Star-Telegram]
• The Sacramento Union, a weekly, local newspaper, has folded. [SacBee]
• The Boston Globe has cut its “Health/Science” section. [CJR]
• Newsquest, one of the largest publishers of regional newspapers in the U.K., is reportedly planning to ask its entire staff to take an unpaid week off. [Guardian UK]
• And finally, the good news. A Reuters story today announces that “the layoffs in the media business don’t come close to the carnage in some other sectors” (i.e. the retail and automotive industries). And The Wall Street Journal’s incredibly cool albeit totally depressing map of layoffs doesn’t even include the media.
