99 bottles of journalism on the wall

Profits are below expectations at Anheuser-Busch. The beer giant is losing ground in the U.S. to imports, and is looking for ways to increase growth and cut costs. But, as our editor pointed out last week in a staff meeting, that does not mean that A-B will take 2 or 3 ounces out of each bottle of beer.

News seems to be the only industry that cuts into its product to increase profits. Specifically newspapers.

Which is a long way of coming around to a special report at Editor & Publisher: As cuts trim news pages and newsrooms — what gets lost?

Top editors seem to be downplaying the cuts in staff: The Web makes information more readily available, employees are now more efficient, and there’s a renewed focus on local reporting. Reporters and the like say there are more mistakes (or the likelihood of more mistakes), a lot more stress and holes in coverage. OK, admittedly all of that was pretty predictable.

So editors are requiring reporters (and designers, copy editors, etc.) to do more in the same amount of time. They’re cutting sections. They’re pushing the Web harder than drug dealers push crack. (Or, you know, so I’ve been told.) But they have no freakin’ idea what they’re pushing or how to do it — the priorities are unclear at most newsrooms. I guess we can take some solace that we’re all in the same boat?

(Tangent: I do like Gannett’s mojos — mobile journalists. Not only can they post stories from the field, but journalists are actually out in the field. It’s definitely reporting that relies less on cultivated sources at city hall, but it gets to the heart of what’s happening out where the readers are.)

So. All of this brings us back to beer. Surely, with the added stress of doing more with less, it is no coincidence that so many journalists are alcoholics. After all, we have to get those Anheuser-Busch earnings back up somehow.