As we speculated might be coming a couple weeks ago, the Uptown paper of record will cut 11 percent of its workforce, including 22 newsroom spots. Overall the paper will loose 123 positions.
The reductions are part of an overall attempt by McClatchy to stem the tide of red ink it faces. Company wide cuts will be the 10 percent range or around 1400 jobs.
More shortly.
Update: McClatchy has also named a new VP of ad sales, charged with coming up with nationally syndicated ads. Even assuming this works — a big leap — it also means that local ad sales, and hence sales people, will be de-emphasized going forward.
The N&O has not yet announced how many jobs it will cut. The Kansas City outpost is losing 120 positions, the Lexington paper 17.
Overall, McClatchy expects to net $70m. in savings from the workforce reductions. This is not a very big number considering the company’s debt burden and continued slide in revenues.
Update II: Publisher Ann Caulkins appears to have relied on a McClatchy form-letter for her announcement this AM of the paper’s job cuts. The text of her email corresponds directly to quotes attributed to Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg’s email announcing his paper’s 250 layoffs.
”As a news company, we have often reported on such transitions in other industries. Now we face the painful reality of severing employment ties with valued friends and colleagues, many of whom have served the company well for many years. We are sorry to do so, and will do everything possible to make their transition as smooth as possible,” Landsberg wrote in an e-mail to employees the Herald reports.
The same graf appears in Caulkins email as well.
These lines are also found in both emails: “As you know, we have already been transitioning to new ways of doing business, and we are now accelerating that effort. We are confident in our ability to navigate to a stable and prosperous future as an integrated media company that remains our community’s most trusted supplier of news and advertising information.”
Perhaps.
Update III: Looks like the N&O will only get an 8 percent trim, or 70 jobs including 16 in the newsroom.
