'Chicago Tribune' Joins 'L.A. Times' in Large Job Cuts

Editor and Publisher ^ | 11/16/05 | E&P Staff

[LdSentinal]

CHICAGO The Chicago Tribune expects large layoffs in the next three weeks, likely "fewer than 100", Publisher David D. Hiller said in a memo to employees late Wednesday.

The announcement came the same day as Tribune Co. papers in Los Angeles and Orlando announced dozens of job cuts. "(W)ith other Tribune business units announcing cuts, and so many of you wondering about our plans, I wanted to share as many facts as I could today," Hiller wrote.

Hiller said the flagship Tribune cutting some newsprint costs, "in part through product changes," and was reducing planned spending on promotion.

"But we have also concluded that it will be necessary to eliminate some employee positions," Hiller wrote. "We have tried to be as careful and thoughtful as possible. In many cases we will be able to eliminate positions that are currently open. The number of current employees whose jobs will be eliminated will likely be fewer than 100, spread across all of our departments." The Los Angeles Times announced 85 job cuts earlier today.

Buyouts are not planned, the memo indicates. Hiller said layoff decision would be finalized in the next two weeks, and people affected would be notified "promptly.'

"Individuals whose positions are eliminated will be provided a severance package," he wrote.

The memo alludes to Tribune Co.'s depressed stock price, and the call by some investors for a sale of Knight Ridder Inc. "We intend to be successful for the long term and that means dealing with these major changes in our business," Hiller wrote.

He said the newspaper would "innovate and change," and suggested that "there also may be some things we should stop doing, or do only on our websites instead of in print."

Hiller said the newspaper would continue to "grow audience across a family of products and channels-starting with the blue paper," the in-house name for the Chicago Tribune printed newspaper. To become the leading Chicago-area online news provider, Hiller said, "will require growing our 24/7 news reporting efforts and retooling our organization to fit that continuous cycle, and we have plans for doing that."

"We want to invest for growth at the same time that the revenue in many parts of our business is coming under increasing pressure," Hiller wrote. "The only real solution is to find costs to reduce where possible and to use the savings to help fund investment."

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

I hope they don't get rid of sports columnist Bernie Lincicome. He is one of the best columnists I've ever read, really knows how to put words together.

[ncountylee]

More great news. The MSM is hurting and shrinking.

[Paleo Conservative]

[Lancey Howard]

Woo HOOOO!!!!
Die, liberal newspapers.... DIE!
Just hurry up and die.

[Petronski]

"Market death" to liars.

[Prince Charles]

Just in time for the employees' Christmas pay envelopes.

And these leftists like to call us Grinches? Unreal.

[RayChuang88]

I knew that someone would post that graphic.

[JennysCool]

They call it "Fitzmas pay."

[DuckFan4ever]

On the positive side, their should be plenty of resumes for any job opening in the print media. Maybe the glut of job seekers will cause a downward pressure on wages in that industry. I wouldn't mind seeing those "reporters" getting paid what they are really worth-- Squat.

[allen08gop]

Hiller is hardly a liberal. He does have a few on the staff to get rid of though. The Chicago Tribune isn't anywhere near as bad as the NYSlime. That place needs a tactical neutron bomb and quickly.

BTW, Hiller plays handball against Rummy.

[Paleo Conservative]

The Chicago Tribune isn't anywhere near as bad as the NYSlime. That place needs a tactical neutron bomb and quickly.

How far is it from the UN?

[kingu]

At every turn, it seems like the LA Times was working on purpose to reduce their revenues and their reach. When a local section was pulling down more revenue per page than the sports section, the word came down from upon high that local sales reps were to knock off the 'abuse' of the advertising sections.

Local ads were put elsewhere in the paper to reflect the 'general advertising policies' and revenues fell through the floor. Without revenues, the local office couldn't be justified and was cut.

Innovative profiling of web readership to help determine placements of articles - more popular columnists and article subjects were to be moved to more accessible areas of the newspaper were wiped off the map when it didn't match management's vision of how the paper should be layed out, and virtually abandoned all together.

Linkage of advertising to article content was reduced to simply 'sectional' in choice.

Writers were encouraged to make articles more 'personal to the average reader' with the profile not provided by the average reader but instead by management. Locally generated content was consistently challenged to be 'of national viewpoints and relevance.'

As much as I dislike the viewpoints of management on political issues, the simple reality is that the Tribune Co. has destroyed popular newspapers in virtually every market they are in. Whereas a lot of other 'local' newspapers were secondary subscriptions to a lot of readers, the 'flagship' of the region was instead dumped. Whereas local newspapers continued with mostly tried and true newspaper dogma in following what the readers want, management continued to determine what the readers should have.

Add on top of this incredible investments in overseas offices that provided little more illumination on events than what could be found on CNN, and sometimes even less, a thirst for industry accolades, and a drifting away from the business community that paid the bills, and I'm shocked some days that they're still in business at all, rather than simply reducing staff.

If I wanted to make a business model to demonstrate how not to do everything, I'd put them down not only as a reference, but as a slipstream model demonstrating why that model is so bad.

[McGavin999]

I guess it hasn't occured to any of them that they could increase their readership if they just told the truth from time to time.

[hunter112]

It's too late for this particular medium. Who has time to read newspapers in the modern world, really? If everybody's getting their news from TV, and increasingly, from the Internet, who will bother to read all the glut of ads that pay for newspapers? Dead tree versions of information are on their way out.

I sincerely doubt that there will be any daily newspapers left by 2025, at least papers as we know them today.

[McGavin999]

Oh, I don't know about that. There is something missing sitting on the patio in the morning sipping your steaming cup of coffee and reading the laptop. Or sprawled out in bed on Sunday morning trying to share the laptop with your spouse because he wants to read the sports section and you want to read the editorials.

Frankly, I miss that, but I don't miss it enough to read the crap they print today.

Besides, if we won't read their tripe on newsprint, what makes them think we'll read their tripe on-line?

[ROTB]

[Eastbound]

'Schadenfreud, Schadenfreud
Upon their pens they're fallllllllllling
They had their chance but lost the ranch
Forsooth! They left their callllllllling

[hunter112]

I'll agree, reading your laptop is not quite comfortable, but it's only a matter of time before there is a reader-friendly way to peruse news, books, and any other form of printed information. It might be as simple as a sheet that constantly can be updated with streaming information. The "newspapers" of the "Minority Report" movie are not nearly as far fetched as the cars that drove up the sides of buildings in that film.

Yes, drivel is drivel, no matter how delivered. In any case, the centuries old model of the newspaper is all but dead and buried. My great-grandchildren may never see one outside of a museum, or an old trunk in the attic. If liberal claptrap accelerates this process, all the better.

[nutmeg]

bttt