Pioneer Press plans to cut 30 jobs (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

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http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=12730

Topic: Memos Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 7/17/2007 5:48:12 PM
Title: Pioneer Press editor’s buyouts memo
Posted By: Jim Romenesko

From: Fladung, Thom
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 4:05 PM
To: All News

Fellow Pioneer Press staffers:

We are offering a buyout program in the newsroom.

Newsroom employees can apply for a buyout that will offer two weeks’ pay for each year of service, up to the equivalent of one year’s pay. Also, the Pioneer Press will pay the company portion of COBRA health-care coverage for up to six months, based on years of service.

We would like to grant buyouts to at least 15 people in the newsroom.

Here’s how it will work: Anyone interested in the buyout should see me immediately. If you elect to volunteer for the buyout, you’ll be asked to sign an election sheet available from me, Barb Johnson or Human Resources. To be eligible for the buyout, you must return this sheet to Mica Carlson in Human Resources no later than noon Central time on July 24.

The Pioneer Press must approve each buyout application. And while our intent is to grant at least 15 buyouts in the newsroom, we may accept more or less depending on who applies and our ongoing needs. We will base who gets buyouts on:
* Length of employment
* Impact on and contribution to the paper
* Breadth and depth of skills/work experience
* Unique skills/work experience

We will tell you whether we have accepted your buyout by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, July 25. For those people granted buyouts, the last day of work will be Friday, July 27.

Mica Carlson, Lynne Swenson and others in Human Resources will be available to answer your questions and to help should you be considering this step.

Why are we doing this? Financial conditions have only gotten tougher in the first six months of 2007. We continue to work on new ways to increase revenue, particularly with online initiatives and niche publications. Meanwhile, though, we believe we have to act now — both to deal with the current economic conditions and to put us on a more stable footing going into the near future.

We remain committed to our mission of emphasizing distinctive local news from everyone in the newsroom and continuing to emphasize zoning for community news from our metro desk.

As with the last round of buyouts, we will be conducting these with that mission in mind. And we will react and reorganize in the newsroom to deal with the changes that will come with the buyouts.

Please feel free to come to me with any questions.

Thom

Thom Fladung
Editor
St. Paul Pioneer Press
651-228-5487

In December, the paper offered a round of buyouts that took 30 jobs out of the newspaper, including 21 in the newsroom.

That's some seriously fast hemorrhaging. The folding of more newspapers(and the saving of more trees) may be closer than some of us had dared hope.

With all these buyouts of the 50+ crowd, is there anyone left at these newspapers over the age of 50? Seems every year these papers are offering buyouts to the 50 and older crowd. Soon there wont be a grey hair left among them.

The folding of more newspapers(and the saving of more trees) may be closer than some of us had dared hope

Milhous and I had opined between ourselves that last year (mid '06 - mid '07) was the tipping point for newspapers. There's no way the major metro papers will be able to survive, at least as we've known them over the past few decades. We've also speculated that this year (mid '07 - mid '08) may be the year that the wheels come off the network news divisions.

We shall see.

I hope your predictions are accurate, especially as concerns the network electronic media. Seldom has an institution done such an injustice to its industry, or so poorly served its consumers. These organizations are supposed to be purveyors, nay, guardians, of Truth. Yet night after night they auger lies, half-truths, and utter propaganda into the living rooms of millions of innocent viewers.

There is no fate too vile for these whores.

The folding of more newspapers(and the saving of more trees) may be closer than some of us had dared hope.

Fishwrap's demise also makes Gaia a less trashy place (in more ways than one).

I see dead dinomediasaurs ... everywhere.

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These organizations are supposed to be purveyors, nay, guardians, of Truth. Yet night after night they auger lies, half-truths, and utter propaganda into the living rooms of millions of innocent viewers.

Decisions, Decisions...

Do I turn on the Evening News, or invite Joe Isuzu to dinner?

At least Joe doesn't have commercial breaks for ED drugs.

My only regret is that while the St.P-PP leans left - it's not as far left as the Strib.

It would be sweet to watch the Strib crash & burn before the PP.

my 2 cents...

‘Pioneer Press’ Editor Won’t Rule Out More Cuts in ‘07

By Joe Strupp

Published: July 18, 2007

NEW YORK A day after announcing the second buyout offer in less than seven months at the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press, which could mean another 30 employees gone, Editor Thomas Fladung would not rule out even further job cuts before the end of 2007.

“We are all on unsure ground,” said Fladung, who announced Tuesday a buyout offer that could see up to 15 newsroom jobs lost. “I didn’t see doing these now because I didn’t see the first six months of ‘07 having a revenue slide.”

Newspaper Guild leaders criticized the move, saying the paper needs to reorganize the way it approaches news instead of continually cutting. “We are trying to get the company to take a look at how it does business, revamp everything,” said Alex Friedrich, Pioneer Press unit chair for the Minnesota Newspaper Guild. “How are we doing advertising? What is our online presence? Some stuff is inefficient, we need more training. Why the company thinks cutting and cutting year after year is going to work is beyond me.”

Friedrich said Fladung’s failure to rule out further buyouts or job cuts after this round is not a surprise. “I asked how low MediaNews would be willing to go,” Friedrich recalls about his conversation with the editor. “He said he didn’t know.” MediaNews Group of Denver, Colo., owns the Pioneer Press.

Fladung said the decision for the latest buyout offer came about quickly. “We have been talking about it for about a week, we had to get MediaNews approval, which we got on Friday, and had one more meeting on Monday,” he explained. “We had to react fast because the financial situation dictated it.”

The buyout offer is the second to occur at the newspaper since late last year, when 29 employees, including 22 newsroom staffers, took advantage of a similar offer in December. Some employees have complained that the latest buyout plan gives them just a week to commit, with a July 25 deadline to decide. “Journalists should be able to react quickly,” Fladung said. “These are life-changing decisions and I don’t mean to minimize it.”

If the predicted 15 newsroom employees leave through this buyout, that will mean the news staff had shrunk from 202 before the 2006 buyout down to 165 at the end of the latest one. When asked if a third buyout is more or less likely before the end of 2007, Fladung said, “I am not into predicting the future. I sure hope it is less likely.”

Fladung, who said the current buyout offers two weeks’ salary for each year of service up to one year of pay, blamed the revenue slide on a mix of advertising downturns, including classified and auto ads. But he said local ad sales were holding steady, “which is encouraging.”

The latest buyouts were announced as the guild is in ongoing contract talks to forge a new agreement. The current contract expires July 31, Friedrich said, noting that no salary proposals have been put forth by either side, but procedural changes have been discussed.

Company officials have proposed eliminating daily overtime in favor of a weekly overtime plan, freezing the employee pensions, and changing the vacation policy. Friedrich said the union wants to merge the online and print newsrooms, a move that would bring the online workers under guild representation. “We’ve got editorial folks wondering why we aren’t merged,” he said. “Advertising people wondering why they can’t sell online.”

Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.

Links referenced within this article

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