Good newspapers with smaller staffs?

History shows good newspapers can be put out with smaller staffs, according to a feature this week in Slate, the daily magazine on the web owned by the Washington Post Company. The article by Slate editor at large Jack Shafer asks how many journalists can a newspaper jettison before its hair falls out and its ribs start showing?

Dollar-pinching publishers are now paying experienced reporters and editors to leave their jobs. Buyouts will soon reduce the Los Angeles Times to 850 journalists, about three-quarters of its peak.* The San Francisco Chronicle has announced plans to cut the newsroom from 400 to 300. The San Jose Mercury News employed 400 journalists seven years ago and will soon have only 200 crashing the keyboards. Similar stories can be told about the Dallas Morning News, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Baltimore Sun, and other newspapers. Foreign bureaus are being shuttered, and full-time arts slots at newspapers in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago, and elsewhere have been eliminated or downgraded.

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.

There’s a little bit more to it than that however. Read the complete article on our website (click on the headline) and then leave your own comment here or e-mail it to hliggett@sbcglobal.net