The Las Vegas Sun, which operates as a joint-operating-agreement under the Las Vegas Review-Journal, has long maintained two, completely separate print and online operations, including everything from editorial, sales and human resource staffs.
That is now coming to an end.
Tuesday Sun parent-company, The Greenspun Media Group, announced it is merging the two operations.
The company sited reasons of wanting to streamline customer service operations, better utilize available resources and combat the continuing recession as reasons for the merger.
Layoffs will be necessary for this merger to take place, the company said. The reorganization will be effective immediately and should be nearly wrapped up by the end of the month.
Rob Curley, an Internet guru from Kansas, works at The Las Vegas Sun as the president and executive editor of Greenspun Interactive.
Under his tutelage, LasVegasSun.com has done incredible work and setting a standard for how online news should be done. They won a general excellence award from the Online News Association in 2009 and an EPpy Award for the second year in a row.
I closely watch what The Sun does with its Web operation because I want to learn, but I fear this downsizing is going to hurt the overall quality.
Greenspun says this will help better use available resources, but I’m not sure I buy that. Any time an organization cuts staff, it hurts the quality. That’s just the way it is.
With fewer people, it is shortsighted to think a news organization can maintain the high level of coverage it has done in the past, and this will hurt the consumer. No longer will the readers get the depth of reporting and content they have become accustomed to.
I’m confident The Sun will continue with its standard of excellence, but I just hope this merger actually benefits the company rather than hinders it.
