Newsday is only useful for housebreaking pets...
September 2, 2005
Newsday will shrink the staff of its New York City edition by more than half in the face of weak circulation as it cuts 45 newsroom jobs at the Long Island-based newspaper overall, it announced yesterday.
Top editors said a scandal over inflated circulation that has been plaguing Newsday made it difficult for them to argue against drastically scaling back the New York edition, especially as large newspaper chains such as Newsday parent Tribune Co. struggle to improve profits.
A city desk staff of 45 will be cut to 20 or fewer, including perhaps 12 reporters, Newsday top editor John Mancini told staff in the newsroom of the Kew Gardens office. The paper will offer voluntary buyouts.
"This is extremely painful," Mancini said as he fought to stop his voice from cracking. "It's dramatic and drastic, make no mistake. The reason to do this is to protect the core franchise, which is Long Island."
The cuts will mean less staff coverage in New York, especially outside Queens, where most of the edition's circulation is based.
"The cold, hard truth is that we can no longer support the investment necessary to cover the city as ambitiously as we do today," Mancini, 45, who had been assistant managing editor for New York before being named to replace Howard Schneider as top editor in November, said in a memo e-mailed to staff.
The announcement came just more than 10 years after Newsday's shutdown of a much bigger New York Newsday edition, which involved 750 job cuts. At that time, Newsday was owned by Los Angeles-based Times Mirror, which was sold to Chicago-based Tribune in 2000 for $8 billion.
Another liberal rag bites the dust. These people are slow learners!
"Newsday is only useful for housebreaking pets... "
I have more respect for my dog than to subject him to such a degrading act.