ABC News to Layoff 20% and Pledges to No Longer Be “Snewz”

New York – ABC News announced a huge round of layoffs  yesterday - at least as many as 300 positions, as part of a major restructuring.  This announcement comes close behind CBS News having downsized just under 100 employees recently.  Supposedly, the ABC News president wrote something of this nature in a memo to staff, “ABC News will undergo a fundamental change that will ultimately affect every corner of our operation.  Especially those corners currently bleeding greenbacks, but with the exception of the corner that keeps Diane Sawyer’s hair looking like butter-colored spun sugar.  These moves will ensure that we will appear more like journalists and secure financial footing for years to come.”  (In case you were wondering, the people who wax and shine Katie Couric’s legs at CBS were spared the ax as well.)  While this news is very sad for industry professionals, it’s not a surprise to those of us who think the last time broadcast news seemed innovative and interesting was when anchor Jessica Savitch drove off a bridge in the early 80s. 

In any case, ABC has pledged to have six principles in place for making them relevant again:

1. In newsgathering, they will choose to significantly increase the use of digital journalists. This means that they will no longer be two days behind the Internet, being scooped more often by cyber dregs like Matt Drudge and Perez Hilton than a pint of Chubby Hubby in Kirstie Allie’s bedroom freezer.  Also, their twits have already begun to Tweet.

2. In production, they will follow the cost-efficient example Nightline, a program that shoots and edits its own material, but take it to the next level.  ABC News will recruit young tech wizards at Star Trek conventions, who are not only capable of shooting and editing the news, but also have the ability to build their own video cameras and switchers from unwanted household electronics, enabling them to set the production costs on “stun.”

3. They will now structure their newscasts by combining their weekday and weekend operations for both Good Morning America and World News.  Morning anchors will be trained to upgrade their “sad and empathetic” face to a “serious but somber” face and vice versa so the staff can substitute for each other in a pinch.  George Stephanopoulos will now be on call for the entire news day in both New York and Washington and due to the demands of this restructuring,  he will now have the possibility someday of no longer looking 14.

4. In special events, they will no longer hire additional staff and will have personnel from across their divisions cover whatever comes up in addition to what is scheduled.  So maybe we can look forward to Barbara Walters dragging her bony ass out of the Hamptons to pop up to cover a wiener-eating contest this July 4th.

5. In newsmagazine reporting, they will now use a blend of staff and freelancers to meet the demanding hours throughout the year and the need to pay no company benefits.  These freelancers will not likely be able to extort money from Jimmy Kimmel for having sex with his staff to make up the difference financially.  While it’s true Jimmy is already dating a staff member, and even though he’s rumored to have slept with Sarah Silverman (Really? Maybe she just rode him like a pony??), the general public is still probably going to have too much difficulty with the mental picture of Jimmy having sex at all as it’s probably even ickier than the thought of Letterman getting busy.

6. They plan to reduce redundancy and provide extensive training in the new technology in house and out in the field.  This is a little unclear.  Does it mean they will finally give their staff Blackberries?   Personally, we think the best type of reduction in redundancy would be to reduce the number of times they show someone like “Balloon Boy” puking on the air to only once.