Media

Fiona Morgan at the Independent reports that a number of newsroom staff have accepted the buyout offers that the McClatchy-owned News & Observer offered last month.

Among them is Samiha Khanna, who covers Durham County and its school system; Matt Dees, a former Durham city reporter who was recently transferred to the Orange County bureau; and Cheryl Johnston Sadgrove, who covers Orange County government. Until the newsroom is reorganized to adjust for these losses, that leaves one Orange County and four Durham reporters.

- Triangulator: N&O loses more reporters, 9/22/08

I still can't understand the business model that has them eliminating the one uniquely valuable thing that the paper has. No-one's going to buy the paper just to pick up wire reports and local classifieds. Or as McClatchy's CEO said:

Fiona Morgan, over at the Indy, reports that the N&O's parent company McClatchy has the Chapel Hill News building up for sale.

"I think if we got the right price, we'd be interested in talking with somebody," John Drescher, The N&O's executive editor, said in an interview.

Is this inevitable? Can the Carrboro Citizen pick up the slack? Is it time for more startup papers to run tight ships with old school newspaper values? I for one am pretty sad it has come to this but am not surprised one bit. For more details see another recent article by Morgan called What's Up? More bad news at The N&O.