It has been a bad week for The Irish Times. The newspaper and its operating company must now face into a bleak period of hard choices and difficult operating decisions. A great gap has opened up between the newspaper's earnings and its costs. On Tuesday, management told staff representatives that as part of a programme to return to profitable trading, 250 jobs have to go. Union representatives have said they will not accept forced redundancies. Both sides will get down to detailed discussions on Monday.
There can be little that is cheering in this situation. But the staff of the newspaper have been heartened by the volume of sympathy, the expressions of goodwill and the many messages of support from readers and advertisers alike. The message which The Irish Times wants to send back - very strongly - is that come what may, it will hold its place, without compromise, as Ireland's premier print medium, committed to its public role as a serious and unaligned newspaper.
Operating a quality newspaper - or a public service broadcasting station - is expensive, especially in a small country where economies of scale do not apply.
RT╔, which announced further staff cuts during the week, finds itself in a comparable situation. The range and depth of this newspaper's editorial services are unique in Ireland and differentiate it from others which do not invest similarly. It has committed itself to giving readers an Irish view of world events by building up a modest but vigorous network of overseas bureaux. It has provided consistently detailed coverage of Northern Ireland and the peace process. Its place as a noticeboard of public opinion is special. The things which go to give it this distinctive place and role in Irish society will not be abandoned. The Irish Times will remain The Irish Times in the fullest sense.
It is true that the organisation has been slow to get to grips with historical costs. Many of the jobs now under threat at The Irish Times have long disappeared in other newspapers.
A phased programme to manage down the problem had been put in place at the news paper, based on the prevailing economic wisdom that the economy would slow to a soft landing after the peak of 2000. Unhappily, events overtook the process, braking the economy to a halt and drastically reducing advertising revenues.
We take pride in our place as a newspaper which is independent of all outside interests, unaligned with other business or financial elements. If the company and its staff are prepared to work together, the news paper's present difficulties can and will be overcome.
The various stakeholders may have different approaches to the problems and there will be different interpretations of much of what has happened in the past. But they will be united in their determination to maintain the ethos, the principles and the standards which have made The Irish Times a great Irish institution and a newspaper which can hold its own with any in the world.