Posted on 10/21/2006 1:48:57 PM PDT by abb
SAN JOSE The San Jose Mercury News plans to lay off as many as 101 employees over the next two months to cut costs and make up for declining advertising revenue, the paper said Friday.
The company will eliminate 41 newsroom positions - or about 15 percent of its editorial staff - by Dec. 19, with the rest of the cuts coming from other departments including circulation, finance, marketing and human resources, said Dan Breeden, a Mercury News spokesman.
The cuts, which officials say will be made mostly through layoffs, will sever about 8 percent of the paper's overall workforce. About 10 to 15 currently open positions across the company could be included in those cuts, Breeden said.
The company does not yet know which employees will be laid off, and all employees in targeted departments were notified about the plans.
"It's an economic decision," Breeden said. "We're preparing for needing to lay off 101, but it's really our hope that the cuts don't go quite so deep."
Newspapers across the country have been slashing staff as investors have increasingly demanded they maintain their profit margins amid declining revenues.
Also Friday, the new publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News told employees that layoffs are "unavoidable."
The job cuts in San Jose come after Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc. acquired the Mercury News from McClatchy Co. in August, establishing itself as the largest newspaper publisher in the San Francisco Bay area with more than 700,000 subscribers.
It also acquired the Contra Costa Times in the same deal. Publisher John Armstrong said Friday that Editor Chris Lopez was leaving the paper, but no other layoffs were planned.
Armstrong said in a statement to staff that Lopez's position had become "redundant" as the company consolidated its Bay Area news operations.
"Given the serious revenue pressures all newspapers are facing ... we cannot afford any redundancy, especially at the senior management level," he said.
In a story published in August in the Times, Mercury News Publisher George Riggs discussed the deepening financial woes facing the newspaper industry. He said papers would have be become "super, super efficient" about costs and suggested they become "the Wal-Mart of information purveyors."
Riggs said in a note to his staff that the company was required to give the 60-day notice under state law.
"I understand the uncertainty these staffing cuts create for everyone, and deeply regret that we have to take this action," Riggs said in the note. "Please know that we would not do so unless it was absolutely necessary to ensure the future viability of our newspaper."
The paper is also negotiating three separate union contracts. Luther Jackson, executive officer for the San Jose Newspaper Guild, said the cuts come at a particularly painful time for the paper, as more than 50 guild workers took buyouts in November.
"Our concern is, you keep making cuts and cuts, and at what point does it hurt the quality of the product?" he said. "That's what we need to draw revenues. I don't see how this benefits the paper."
Ping
OH MAN rack this idea
THIS IS GREAT!!!!!!
Since these liberals all claim to be so smart, and claim to know how everything should be done and how we all should live, I have one question -- how come they are all going bankrupt?
More...
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/15815023.htm
Mercury News announces it will lay off 101 employees
By Pete Carey
Mercury News
The Mercury News announced Friday that it will lay off 8.5 percent of its work force -- 101 employees -- by Dec. 19 as a long-running slide in revenues across the newspaper industry continues.
It is the second time in less than a year that the San Jose newspaper, which employs roughly 1,160 people, has cut its staffing levels. In November 2005, the newspaper reduced staff through voluntary buyouts, 52 of which were in the news operation.
Of the layoffs announced Friday, about 40 will come out of the newsroom, a 14 percent cut.
``I'm sorry to have to stand before you today, again, with some bad news,'' executive editor Susan Goldberg said at an afternoon meeting of newsroom employees. ``The economics of our industry continue to slide downward.''
Revenue declines have hit newspapers across the country this year, many of which have reduced staff. The slide has been sharp across advertising sectors, including real estate, job placement and automotive.
Publisher George Riggs, who is also president of the California Newspapers Partnership, which controls the Mercury News, said in a letter to employees that any increase in revenue could reduce the need for layoffs. There are also three union contracts under negotiation and, depending on the outcome, Riggs said, they could lead to ``further expense reductions'' that might lower the number of layoffs.
The Newspaper Guild's local bargaining committee, which represents the newsroom's union workers, said in a statement that it is concerned MediaNews is ``reacting precipitously to quarterly results by taking steps that will further diminish our newspaper.''
Like other public and private newspaper companies in the United States, Riggs said, MediaNews is seeing the migration of ad revenue to the Internet. The Denver-based newspaper group recently purchased the Mercury News, Contra Costa Times and Monterey Herald and added them to its California partnership with Gannett and Stephens Media.
Other MediaNews papers around the Bay Area are experiencing the same pressures. On Wednesday, Contra Costa Times publisher John Armstrong said in a letter to staff that a ``sharp and rather sudden decline'' in real estate advertising had dragged down that paper's revenues and that it must lower costs.
LOL. It's been a slaughter. There's blood all over the floor. And I continue to shake my head. It did not have to be this way. I would not have given up newpapers altogether (I actually enjoyed sitting down with a paper and a cup of coffee), but when you realize you are not getting news, just the point of view of one spectrum of society (and it isn't yours), that you are being actually lied to by way of slant, distortion and failure to report what does not fit where they want to lead you, you just don't bother with them.
Merry Christmas to the left-wing news industry. Oh, I forgot, they don't approve of Christmas. Well, there's always jobs at the supermarket counter.
Dinosaur death-rattle...
According to my kakulashuns, theat leaves 1087 to go.
Let's Roll.
At GE, Progress is our Most Important Product...
Thanks for the news. :)
Excellent!
I also used to really enjoy reading the local paper on Sunday morning with my coffee. I looked forward to it. But about two years ago I finally had enough with "all the socialism that's fit to print" and cancelled it. They've begged me to resubscribe, and I've told them exactly why I won't, but they can't seem to get it through their thick heads that it's the bias, stupid.
If there were alternative unbiased newspapers I'd subscribe in an instant.
I tend to consider such reports as a postive sign of movement to web news as the wave of the future. However, consider what this means in the short term. As they lay off local news staff, they will tend to print feeds from a national source... the New York Times and AP. They have to pay those national sources. So the income to NYT and AP increases, prolonging their survival. For a decade or so, we may actually see a worst environment for unbiased reporting.
Same here. My last refuge was the WSJ (no Sunday paper, of course), but in the end all I could read was the editorial page (and only part of that) and the tech columns, so it wasn't worth it, even for the crossword.
15% less concentrate...won't affect the overall ultra-liberal taste...
But, it's a good feeling to know they're falling on hard times.
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