US newspapers' staff cut by 105,000 since 2001

The number of staff who have left the US newspaper industry since 2001 is now estimated at 105,000, according to the MediaPost website.
Based on records kept by the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Labor and tallies by various industry watchers, total employment in the newspaper publishing business has declined from 414,000 in 2001 to 309,000 at the end of 2009, a 25.4% drop over the course of eight years.
MediaPost says that the layoffs accelearted through 2009. "After losing an average 3.5% per year from 2001-2006, in 2007-2009, the average rate of loss increased to 5% per year. After a period of relative stability, newsroom losses grew steeper towards the end of the period: Total employment declined by an average 1% per year from 2001-2006, then accelerated to 5% from 2007-2009, including an 11% drop from 2008-2009."
MediaPost concludes: "Though it's hard to generalize about the meaning of these figures with certainty, they may indicate that, having held out against newsroom layoffs as long as possible, in 2009 newspaper publishers finally decided they had cut other business functions to the bone, and reluctantly began cutting costs in the newsroom.
"If this is the case, and if 2010-2011 doesn't bring a big rebound in newspapers' fortunes, coming years may see the quality and quantity of journalism suffer noticeably."
Via E&P in Exile

Talking Head David Byrne starts making sense: "What happened to music business is now happening to news"

Interesting post No More News by former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne on his website about the similarity between what happened in the US music business in the 1980s and what is happening to the news business today.
In a reference to the takeover of The Tribune Company, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times, TV stations and other regional newspapers, by property billionaire Sam Zell, Byrne notes a number of journalists have left the company and its debts have increased.
He says: "I saw similar things happen in the music business in the early 80’s, as record companies merged and were taken over by other companies (Warner Bros. was absorbed by Time and then later, AOL).
"The result was that the companies suddenly ended up in debt, and, in order to show a profit every quarter, had to forget about their standards and musical instincts. Long-term thinking became a thing of the past. They had to cut back here and there, which often meant cutting out middle-level employees....The thing is, it was the middle-level people who actually knew and essentially ran the businesses."

Substitute "journalists" for "middle-level employees" and you've got what's happening to the regional newspaper industry in the UK. I picked up Byrne's post from journalism.co.uk where it was an editor's pick by John Thompson.