The Lake Norman Times will cease publication April 15, the newspaper reports on its Web site.

Womack Publishing Co. Inc., which founded the weekly newspaper 17 years ago, cites the recession and declining advertising revenue.

Subscribers will receive prorated refunds, as will advertisers with multi-week contracts.

Virginia-based Womack Publishing owns and operates 15 community newspapers in North Carolina and Virginia.

Source: Charlotte Business Journal

The Charlotte Observer is eliminating almost 15 percent of its work force, including 30 newsroom positions, while reducing the pay of most remaining employees.

The newspaper also plans to cut the hours of some workers. If economic conditions don’t improve, the McClatchy (nyse: MNI – news – people )-owned paper said Monday that a one-week furlough will be imposed later this year.

The Observer announced the cuts on its Web site. It said the 14.6 percent reduction means a loss of 60 full-time and 22 part-time employees in several departments, including advertising, operations, circulation, marketing and the newsroom.

Source: Forbes.com

We’ve been reporting the demise of newspapers now for a long time.

And, while it’s been very clear that unless the papers made radical changes to their business model they would go bankrupt – we didn’t expect it to happen THIS YEAR!

In fact – 2009 may be the final year of major newspaper circulation as we’ve always known it. Watch this video report posted by NBC today and you decide.

Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont and the city of Charlotte have launched the the 2009 Youth Job Connection.

The program is open to Charlotte youth between the ages of 14 and 18.

Teens participating in the program can access free job training and placement assistance, including resume writing, customer service and interview skills.

The program provides a one-stop shop for area employers to access a job-ready, pre-screened pool of young adults eager to work.

Online registration for youth and employers with jobs is available now at www.youthjobconnection.com.

Walk-in services are available from noon to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and noon to 4:30 p.m. on Friday at Goodwill’s corporate office at 2122 Freedom Drive.

The program started as a pilot last summer and expanded to a year-round service after more than 2,000 youth registered for services.

Source: Charlotte BizJournals

According to eMarketer.com, the outlook for newspaper publishers is grim. Their business model is broken and advertisers are bailing. Newspaper advertising revenues in the US declined 16.4% in 2008 to $37.9 billion. By 2012, spending will slide to $28.4 billion. Is there hope for this proud medium?

Newspaper circulation continues to deteriorate as people increasingly go online for news that is timelier and free. And the relatively high fixed costs of paper, printing and distribution show no signs of waning.

And there is little relief online, where newspaper revenues are dropping as well.  eMarketer estimates that even Internet revenues dipped slightly in 2008, 0.4% to $3.15 billion.

In my humble opinion – the newspaper may not be around in another few years.  And why would it?  Look at what the internet did to the travel agent industry.  They’ve for the most part..gone the way of the dodo bird.  Same thing will happen to the newspaper as they no longer provide a relavent service at current price points.

A moment of sympathy, please, for newspapers, whose readers and advertisers have been fleeing at a frightening rate.

It would be easy to accuse editors and publishers of being clueless about the coming Internet disruption and to insist that the industry’s proper reward for decades of haughty attitude, bad planning, and incompetence is bankruptcy.

But newspapers have really, really tried to wrap their hands around the future and preserve their franchise, an insight I owe to Pablo J. Boczkowski’s 2004 book, Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers. The industry has understood from the advent of AM radio in the 1920s that technology would eventually be its undoing and has always behaved accordingly.

For instance, publishers aggressively pursued radio licenses in the early days of broadcasting and, later, sought and acquired TV licenses when they were dispensed. As early as 1947, Walter Annenberg’s Philadelphia Inquirer and John S. Knight’s Miami Herald experimented with fax editions of their papers. Seems visionary enough to me.

Read full article from Slate.com

In doing research on how traditional newspapers are performing in the United States, I came across this article – interesting stuff.  In summary, audience shifts from newspaper to online for everything from local news to classifieds has had a devastating effect on bottom line revenues.  Some of this revenue loss is being offset by newspaper’s own online vehicles, but nowhere near enough to offset massive revenue losses.  The article posted earlier today about the Charlotte Observer’s planned October layoffs are proof positive that this July 2008 article was dead on.  Read on…

JULY 22, 2008

What’s black, white and has red ink all over?

It has been a rough time for the newspaper industry in the US, with a series of layoffs against a backdrop of falling revenues. Consumers still read newspapers, but the rise of online news and opinion sites and blogs has given them additional reading choices. 

One fresh indicator that print newspaper readers are shifting to news sites comes from the Readership Institute. Although two-thirds of Internet users surveyed in July 2008 said they still used print newspapers about as much as they did before they started visiting news sites, more than one-quarter said they were reading print less as a result, and that figure has grown during the past 5 years.

Read full article here.

Event Details
Event Title:	September – Business Continuity Planning
Event Date:	9/8/2008
Event Time:	5:30 PM – 7:15 PM
Event Location:	Marriotte Executive Park Hotel
Business Continuity Planning: What Human Resource Professionals Need to Know   Business continuity planning includes many facets and touch points. From policies and procedures to logistical issues, there are human resource issues that must be taken into consideration when developing these plans. This presentation will review the:   ·   importance of having continuity plans ·   key elements of business continuity planning ·   types of disasters and resulting human resource considerations ·   coordination that must take place between key business units ·   strategies for dealing with different personnel issues during a disaster   Human Resources professionals play a key part in the organizational plan to meet disasters and emergencies. They should lead the identification and development of appropriate policies and procedures, plan a coordination of department activities in a time of emergency, and manage employee fears concerning their own safety. Speaker: Stephen Head, Risk Management - Jefferson Wells International. Sponsor: Being comfortable.  That’s what your temporary housing experience should be all about.  Whether you’re looking for temporary housing, corporate housing, insurance housing or military housing for 30+ days, Marriott ExecuStay offers fully furnished, quality accommodations with all the privacy and spaciousness you’d expect in your own home.  Our guests may be away from home, but they certainly don’t have to live that way.  At Marriott ExecuStay we know that when people are comfortable in their surroundings, they are happier and more productive.  That’s why we’ll find the perfect furnished space to fit our guests needs and complement their lifestyles.  And since ExecuStay is part of the Marriott family, a trusted leader in hospitality for 80 years, extending a warm welcome is in our nature. For more information visit www.execustay.com  HRCI Credit Applied For.
Pricing
Members: $0.00 Guests: $35.00
Click Here to Register for this Event

]]> http://blog.localjobs.com/2008/08/30/business-continuity-planning-what-human-resource-professionals-need-to-know/feed/ 0 LOCALJOBS.COM http://blog.localjobs.com/2008/08/30/10-commandments-of-communicating-with-people-with-disabilities/ http://blog.localjobs.com/2008/08/30/10-commandments-of-communicating-with-people-with-disabilities/#comments Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:49:13 +0000 LOCALJOBS.COM http://jobpods.wordpress.com/?p=106 ]]>

Presentation and interactive panel discussion by the Disability Resource Center

Lillian Burch, Executive Director of the Disability Resource Center, and Alan Muir, Executive Director – Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities, University of Tennessee, along with other staff members, will lead the panel discussion

Topics will include ADA, EEOC regulations, EEOC complaints, recruiting, and hiring employees with disabilities.

This will be your opportunity to ask those sensitive questions about issues that may arise surrounding employees with disabilities.

Information on the services provided by the Disability Resource Center to employees as well as employers will also be available.

NOTE: Our February program has been approved for 1.0 recertification credit hours toward PHR, SPHR and GPHR recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI).

You can register on-line at www.tvhra.org or by calling (865) 691-3006.  The monthly dinner meeting cost is $17.00.

See you on Tuesday, September 9^th.

Catherine Barnes, SPHR

TVHRA

VP Membership

November 21st, 2007
The latest numbers from the Newspaper Association of America show that newspaper advertising revenue is plummeting as attention and ad dollars move online.
The numbers are downright ugly:

Total advertising expenditures at newspaper companies were $10.9 billion for the third quarter of 2007, a 7.4 percent decrease from the same period a year earlier.
Spending for print ads… continue read