If you want to see where the business end of the newspaper crisis is being played out, read the transcripts of the earnings calls.

This is from the conference call with the CEO of US newspaper group McClatchy, Gary Pruitt [via Seeking Alpha*]. And these calls are where management gets down to what without an MBA is called the nitty gritty, and with one is called granularity.

McClatchy’s goals?

We are focused on four major areas: driving new revenues, with a particular emphasis on online advertising; focusing on growing total audience; providing high quality public service journalism; and reducing our cost structure.

But here’s where it gets into detail:

Classified advertising revenues declined 20%, and here is a review by category.

[Jobs] First, employment, in the fourth quarter employment advertising declined 24%. Print employment revenues were down 28.3%, while online revenues were down 15%, reflecting the close tie between print and online up-sell advertising in the employment category.

[Cars] Automotive advertising was down 13.3%. Our print advertising was down 19%, while our online auto advertising was up 30.5% in the quarter, reflecting the success of our cars.com product.

[Property] Finally, real estate, real estate advertising was down 30.9%, with 64% of this decline coming from California and Florida. Print advertising was down 32.7% and online real estate advertising declined 6.5% in the fourth quarter.

What about re-structuring? Here’s analyst Peter Appert from Goldman Sachs:

[Y]ou have done so much on the headcount front, I am just wondering when you run out of flexibility in terms of the ability to take more bodies out of the business?

The answer from Patrick Talamantes of McClatchy?

[I]n the sales, newsroom, and online areas we are trying to hold the line there as best we can. And it’s really in the circulation, production, finance, G&A areas that we are trying to look for … efficiencies

More at the original…

*Seeking Alpha has a 400 word limit on what you can quote, btw.