From Daily Pulp:
What New Times reported last week is now official: The Herald is cutting 17 percent of its workforce, or 250 positions, which is actually 2 percent more than we expected.
“These next few weeks will be some of the most difficult and emotional we have faced,” Editor Anders Gyllenhaal wrote to staff in an email this morning. “We will do our best to work through these changes at the same time as we try to keep our focus on our work.”
Some will be laid off, other will be offered buyouts. Buyouts were in fact extended this morning to numerous reporters, according to sources, which Gyllenhaal wrote will “first be made on a voluntary basis and then an involuntary basis.”
It is part of a 10 percent across-the-board staff cuts at McClatchey Newspapers, as the AP is reporting this morning:
McClatchy Co. said Monday it will cut 10 percent of its work force in a move to save $70 million a year as the newspaper publisher continues to struggle to attract advertising dollars.
McClatchy, which publishes The Kansas City Star and The Miami Herald, will trim about 1,400 employees. The staff reductions are part of a plan to reduce overall expenses by $95 million to $100 million over the next four quarters.
“The effects of the current national economic downturn — particularly in real estate, auto and employment advertising — make it essential that we move faster now to realign our workforce and make our operations more efficient,” said McClatchy Chief Executive Gary Pruitt, in a statement.
McClatchy said in April that it swung to a loss in the first quarter as a weakening economy and competition from online rivals led to a 15 percent plunge in advertising revenues at its newspapers.
In related bad news, some staffers at the Tampa Tribune expect the hammer to drop this week as involuntary layoffs follow a voluntary buyout that saw a handful of newsers leave last Friday. One source told me late last week: “The end is near.”
(Crossposted from The Political Whore.)
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2008.