Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Layoffs | Just in: report of Cincy newsroom cuts

[Updated at 10:18 a.m. ET today with the latest figures.]

Anonymous@10:10 a.m. just posted the following: "Reports of 15 layoffs in Cincinnati newsroom today." Note: That would be at the low end of a figure I was given several weeks ago by one of my better-placed readers.

Yesterday, meanwhile, The Indianapolis Star laid off 11 advertising department employees, mostly in sales, according to a Gannett Blogger.

Also, employees at the Press & Sun-Bulletin were told yesterday that their wages had been cut 5%, according to an e-mail I just received from a reader, who clarified an earlier post here. The paper joined two other nearby dailies that took the same cut earlier: the Star-Gazette at Elmira, and the Ithaca Journal.

And Arizona Republic Publisher John Zidich announced the closing of the Phoenix Offset Plant in nearby Chandler, which prints USA Today; internal Republic work, and some commercial jobs. A blog reader there estimates the closure will eliminate about 40 jobs by the end of July.

These austerity measures follow weeks of speculation that Gannett was about to bump up its ongoing payroll trimming. GCI has been in a nearly constant layoff mode for more than a year now, interrupted only by sudden increases in cuts.

Yesterday's moves bring to 135 the estimated number of job cuts announced at 15 U.S. sites in the current quarter, which ends June 30. Worldwide, Gannett employs more than 30,000 workers.

Is your worksite represented on this read-only layoff spreadsheet? If not, please add your paper's information in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

[Image: today's front page, Newseum]

26 comments:

  1. So is the plan for the main Arizona Republic plant to pick up this work? I don't think so, and I am not sure they do offset work which I guess means they are going to other forms of printing. Yet won't this get on the wrong side of advertisers, who like offset results? Hmmm. Maybe Arizona doesn't care about advertisers anymore?

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  2. If Arizona stops their layoffs at 40, they'll be lucky. Maybe closing their offset site and outsourcing all their glossy printing will save them enough to not cut others, but I doubt it. They're easily the "fattest" site out of all the local papers. Maybe they'll finally face the knife that continues to cut all the other sites down to nothing.

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  3. No glossy done at Phoenix Offset. Basically the in-house printer for Republics wraps and misc commercial work. Just a big shame. So much waste but no one wanted to see it.

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  4. Yes, the AZ Republic does have offset presses and we've been under the knife just like everyone else.

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  5. Don't be surprised when you hear announcment that Republic will be taking over the work that the USA Today circulation people do out of phoenix offset. Gannett is looking for low hanging fruit for savings and there's lots of duplicate work in areas Republic already covers. The majority of outlying areas are already in partnerships, so you could save a lot of FTE's without feeling any impact.

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  6. 1:05 That makes sense. Probably some previous publisher wanted to protect that offset press work for whatever reason, and located USA Today printing there. I would love to know the history of this because I think it would point to someone (an advertiser?) who is going to start screaming real soon as those presses go offline.
    Interesting, too, for me is that this is just another example of how the community papers have been carrying the costs for printing USA Today. That has been vigorously and vehemently denied here in previous discussions.

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  7. OK, I'm really not paid to be a deep thinker and I certainly know very little about how sales operates. But isn't it a little strange when reading all these alarms about declining revenues at GCI that Indy would be cutting sales staff? Indy used to be a prosperous newspaper, so it is the fault of sales that there are storm clouds building?

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  8. Wasn't just BInghamton. It was the entire BIE group (Ithaca and Elmira).

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  9. 6:16 AM, small cuts have been made at my site in the ad dept. (through attrition). I can't help but think that less sales people = less sales. However, I also realize that someone with the big brain and big bucks is making these decisions so I will trust they are leading us down the right path.

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  10. Ithaca and Elmira have taken their 5% pay cut in October of last year! This round, it was only Binghamton taking the pay cut.

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  11. Last year's pay cut was to stave off the layoffs that Binghamton dealt with. This year's pay cut is across the board. No layoffs, though. Thank God.

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  12. If I were to bet, I'd say the marketing department in Indy will start growing. Mrs. Crotchfelt is known for cutting advertising positions to grow her precious marketing departments. When I look around the marketing floor, I see plenty of positions that came directly from a cut made in advertising. What a shame! This lady ran advertising here in Phoenix and hardly went on any calls. Now we are stuck with her World Class crap that probably cost way too much.

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  13. Seems we have marketing people all over the place. At USA Today, we have Heather and the gaolers, we have marketing in Indy, we have Robin doing marketing from her p.r. office in the Crystal Towers, and we have Maryam plus the new marketing exec at USA Today.
    I used to think marketing was some sort of backwater office in newspaper structures, but someone in Corporate obviously likes marketing an awful lot.

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  14. 1:05 comments about the Republic makes sense. The closing of Chandler printsite puts the spotlight on everyone in that building. There appears to be a lot of duplicate work in the areas Gannetts largest community paper covers. Even if it wasn't on the table before, USA today leaders have an opportunity to save money. I've never seen that group save a budget item just to be nice guys.

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  15. Details on Cincy? Might give the rest of us an idea of what's to come and whether there's some kind of strategy behind the cuts. (more consolidations, outsourcing, etc.).

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  16. Word is that a newsroom "reorganization" is coming this week in Indy.

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  17. 10:14 What, are they going to turn it into an "information center?"

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  18. Get it right. It's the Local Information Center. The LIC. Say it over and over: The LIC. Pronounced "lik."

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  19. 8:14 AM Sure, Gannett loves Marketing. Just ask the Marketing Directors and marketing staff that have been laid off how loved they feel.

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  20. So, lowly paid employees in Binghamton, et. al. have to do with 5 percent less because supposedly, the company isn't doing well financially. Yet, Dubow, et. al. got increased bonuses on these employees' backs, instead of pay cuts.

    I'd challenge any Republican out there to defend this.

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  21. What creativity what enlightened management! we should feel honored to be lead by such a dynamic team!

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  22. Newspapers in the Phoenix market are sold out in retail stores around 8:00am and I'm hearing retailers are questioning providing "valuable" space for a product the newspaper itself doesn't seem to care about. I feel terrible for those still at the newspapers. Corporate hasn't figured out a clear direction but on the current course, Gannett may not be in the newspaper business i the not so distant future. If the layoffs effect the quality of and delivery of the product that future may be closer than ever.

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  23. News Journal, Gannett papers lay off workers

    Jun. 21, 2011 / PNJ.com

    Gannett Co. laid off almost 20 employees and possibly more at its Florida newspapers Tuesday as part of a nationwide cutback that totaled more than 700.

    Four full-time and one part-time staff members were cut at the Pensacola News Journal, and at least 14 at the News-Press in Fort Myers.
    Of the five laid off from the News Journal, one full-time employee and one part-time employee were from the newsroom.

    "Because of our performance, we have not participated in Gannett's downsizing the last two times," said Kevin Doyle, the News Journal's president and publisher. "It appears nobody was exempt this time. Although the impact was minimal, we lost some very dedicated and talented employees."

    The Tallahassee Democrat referred questions to the company's Virginia headquarters, and Melbourne-based Florida Today did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.

    Gannett issued a statement to its employees saying nationwide layoffs were due to a slower-than-expected economic recovery and a continued slump in advertising revenue.

    Gannett is the nation's largest newspaper publisher, owning USA Today and more than 80 other daily U.S. newspapers. The layoffs represent about 2 percent of the company's workforce of 32,600 employees.

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  24. Just hope MB in Cincy didn't lose her perks, hate to have to put gas in and wash her own car. Not to mention the fine China for her dining delights.

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  25. Kevin Doyle obviously has a spine.

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  26. I worked with Kevin Doyle and you always knew where you stood with him. He treated me well and we had a good working relationship. I can see him saying what he did and meaning it.

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