VITAMEDIAS
Let's not do lunch...: Thousands of City job losses have hit the [Financial Times]'s circulation hard, while a collapse in corporate advertising is depriving it of its financial lifeblood. On the editorial floor lunches, foreign travel and taxis - perks that journalists take for granted - have been strictly rationed.
Even pens and notebooks appear in short supply. Before Christmas some staff were told that the stationery cupboard would not be replenished until the new year, leaving reporters to pick up freebie supplies at press conferences.
And in a development that would have been unthinkable two years ago, it was recently reported that the FT has been talking to its similarly stretched arch-rival the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) about merging their European printing and distribution operations in an effort to reduce costs. Just like the companies that it reports on, the FT is caught in the eye of an economic storm and it could hardly have come at a worse time.