Right? What would you do with 900 editorial people? You’d start with 1,800 niche blogs for one. Can you imagine a business model today where you went to someone and said “I’ve got this great idea – we employ about a thousand people to put out a single form of news, which will be instantly obsolete and we’ll look down on anyone that suggests there is a more efficient way to do what we do!”

It’s all nuts.

When I started in radio, in New Zealand, the newsroom had a staff of two, and only one dumb terminal between them.

Yes, 870 does seem massive, but I don’t think they all work on the LA Times publication. I’ve heard some very interesting statistics about UK newspaper staffing. One large paper towards the north of the country has over a 100 editorial people, but can’t any of them to train in new multimedia production methods.

There’s a particularly American approach to publishing that seems relevant here. I remember once reading an article about a small-circulation art magazine in the US, run on a shoestring, that had just unearthed some Andrew Wyeth originals. One line in the US report read: “The magazine, on a barebones editorial staff of 28…” At the time, I was running two magazines with a total editorial staff of five.