Posted on 02/13/2008 1:02:23 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Tribune Co. plans to cut 400 to 500 jobs companywide, including about 100 each at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, the company announced Wednesday.
The cuts, which amount to about 2 percent of the Chicago-based media company's workforce, are a necessary response to a weak economy and "significant declines in advertising volume at our newspapers," Tribune Company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sam Zell said in a memo to employees.
"Unfortunately, I can't turn this ship from its course of the past 10 years within just a few months," said Zell, who took the company private in an $8.2 billion deal last December. "Further, while I will do everything in my power to drive, pull and drag this company forward, I can't promise we won't see additional position eliminations in the future, if we continue at our current rate of cash flow decline."
Chicago Tribune employees were notified Wednesday that about 100 jobs would be eliminated at their newspaper by the end of March. The Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site that it is losing about 100 to 150 jobs, including 40 to 50 in the newsroom.
The cuts are the first since Zell, in conjunction with an employee stock ownership plan, bought the company.
When he took over Tribune Co., Zell indicated he hoped to avoid widespread budget-cutting, saying that perhaps the company hadn't focused enough in recent years on increasing revenue.
But this week he said that, through the third quarter of 2007, Tribune's cash flow had declined 12 percent from the previous year.
You forgot the obligatory title parenthetical: “Dinosaur Media Death Watch.”
The LA Times has not had an up year in 6 or 7 years, I believe.
It would simply devastate me if I were to read similar things about the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times and others of their ilk.
I don't really need a sarcasm tag here, do I?
Ah, schadenfreude. Since they’ve been so wrong about business, could they possibly be wrong about politics, economics, global warming, etc? Naaaaah.
Sam paid how much ?
Thanks, title has been updated!
Sam used the Tribune ESOP to buy it....no skin off his back.
He had a classic quote last week that disturbed all the left winging wieners in LA...
dino ping
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1969854/posts?page=11#11
Tribune Co. to cut staff by about 2% (400-500 layoffs - Dinosaur Media DeathWatch)
Los Angeles Times ^ | February 13, 2008 | Thomas S. Mulligan
Posted on 02/13/2008 2:48:06 PM CST by abb
Maybe they can become shills for the DNC to improve readership??
Pray for W and a Free Press
Fret not unemployed people. If elected, Hillary promised once again to create jobs during a campaign run and will have you back on your feet in NO time.
If the "journalists" weren't so busy carrying the water of the tax-and-spenders in our government and the water of the Greenies who are trying to put us all back in the Stone Age, they'd have to to report enough "hard news" to motivate the electorate to knock some heads in state and federal government, and sell papers like hotcakes.
But, NOOOOOOOOO - higher taxes and more restrictive Green clampdowns on private and public property use are treated like "acts of God" by the so-called "public watchdogs".
They can rot on the unemployment line...
Thanks Norm, I’ll sleep much better knowing the L.A. Times is continuing its death spiral.
It looks like more and more people are saying no to manufactured bad news...
Let them rot.
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