So that's what happened in Westchester

I asked last week what happened in Westchester. We were hearing about layoffs at Gannett Co.'s Westchester County franchise, The Journal News.

The New York Times answered this week:

You’re Gone. But Hey, You Can Reapply.

OR from Columbia Journalism Review:

Gannett spins the hamster wheel

Bottom line in both reports: The entire business reporting and editing staff was laid off in a reorganization after all 288 news and advertising employees were asked to reapply for their jobs.

What happened in Westchester?

Chris Roush reports that the "entire business news staff at The Journal News in Westchester County, New York, a Gannett newspaper, is gone this week in the round of 50 cutbacks at the paper."

Westchester Biz News Staff Gone

Since Gannett Blog closed down in July, there's no quick way to find comments from the staff in Westchester. Anyone know what happened?

Roush, director of the Carolina Business News Initiative at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, reports from his Talking Biz News blog.

Gannett cuts hit Cincy, Louisville and Phoenix

After announcing that 1400 Gannett employees would lose their jobs this week, the shake out is starting to take shape.

According to an Editor & Publisher report, Enquirer Media in Cincinnati, which includes The Cincinnati Enquirer and other publications, eliminated 101 positions this week. Included in the cuts were editorial page editor David Wells, columnist Peter Bronson, and the entire staff of its arts-and-entertainment tabloid CinWeekly.

The outlook was dim for Phoenix Wednesday as well, as confirmation of nearly two dozen staffers losing their jobs at The Arizona Republic came in.
According to the Phoenix Business Journal, designers, feature writers, copy editors, and business and community reporters were among the latest newsroom staffers cut, which was said to total to 20.
The publisher of Louisville-based, The Courier-Journal says the newspaper has eliminated 44 jobs, or 7 percent of its work force. The layoffs were the second round at The Courier-Journal and Gannett since late last year.

View the full story here.

Gannett to cut 1,400 jobs

The Associated Press reported today that Gannett Co. plans to cut 1,400 jobs this month. That is about 3 percent of its total work force.
Bob Dickey, head of the company's newspaper division, informed staff of the layoffs in a letter Wednesday.
The majority of layoffs will come by July 9, he said.
The move follows a 10 percent cut at Gannett last year, which left the company with about 41,500 employees.
View the story here.

Detroit Free Press cuts 22 staffers

The Detroit Free Press cut 22 staffers from its newsroom yesterday, according to Richard Prince's recent column.
Price covers minority issues for the Maynard Institute and said, "by one count, the Free Press eliminated 22 people in its newsroom, 18 of them journalists. Fifteen of them are women, six African American, two Hispanic and two are Asian American."
For more click here.

Times Union employees reject outsourcing

According to the Albany Newspaper Guild blog, Time Union employees voted down a contract offer that would have allowed the company to outsource any job and layoff employees regardless of their time and seniority at the newspaper by a vote of 125 to 35.
View the blog release here.

What do you think of the employees' vote? How do you feel about outsourcing in the newsroom? Comment and tell us.

Pinching Forbes

The New York Times reported today that even Forbes is feeling the squeeze of the economy.
While Forbes magazine has 920,000 subscribers, its average issue price has steadily decreased and its ad pages are down 15 percent in the first quarter compared to last year.
The article reports Forbes has stopped matching contributions to its 401k program, laid off roughly 100 of its 1,000 employees since November and started five-day unpaid furloughs for its staff.
In the story, Mark M. Edmiston of AdMedia Partners asserts Forbes isn't worth half the $75 million its worth has been estimated in the past.
Yet the Times reports that Forbes' misery isn't without company, with the Publishers Information Bureau listing revenue of over $338 million for Forbes, $276 million for Fortune and $236 million for BusinessWeek.
The story shows the recession is impacting both people's demand for Forbes' economic content and its employees' desire to cover it. From the story:

“Everyone here likes the magazine, the people who run it, and most of us believe in the mission,” said one editorial employee who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak with a reporter. “But that sense of mission is sort of hard to sustain when most of the news is bad. Capitalism is a less sexy topic for everyone, including us.”

View the story here.

Is covering capitalism less sexy for you? What do you think about the struggling of Forbes and its competitors? Comment and let use know.

GM plant closures

The Wall Street Journal has a short, straightforward story on the 17 factories and part centers General Motors Corp. will be closing as part of its Chapter 11. The story lists the plants by their town and state locations. WSJ states that G.M. plans to cut roughly 20,000 factory jobs (more than 1/3 of G.M.'s U.S. workforce).
According to the story, 3 plants may "reopen if market demand rebounds." The story also mentions G.M.'s plans to convert a factory currently unused into a place to construct small cars.
View the story here.

Tucson Citizen ceases its print publication Saturday

Arizona's oldest paper, the Tucson Citizen, will cease it's print publication after Saturday's edition.
The paper reports that the Citizen's Web site will continue, but will be modified as an opinion site, eliminating news and sports reporting.
Gannett, the company which owns the Citizen, searched for a buyer for the paper and for the last month employees waited for the results of negotiations.
Ultimately, no buyers were found.
Employees will be informed today if they will be laid off, kept on staff for a transitional basis or hired full time.
To read the full story click here.

Local TV stations in Chicago form news service

Four local TV stations in Chicago will begin combining their coverage efforts and sharing content next week in an effort to save money, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Tony Capriolo, a WMAQ sports producer, has been selected as managing editor of the service, which will be based at WBBM's headquarters across from Daley Plaza but separate from Channel 2's news operation. Each participating outlet will provide two news crews and an assignment editor, and they remain on their station's payroll. Capriolo is an employee of the service, paid for by participating stations.

While the service will save its member stations money otherwise spent on covering the same event or story, some worry that it will make it easier for the stations to lay off employees who are no longer needed.
The stations, on the other hand, say that the move will allow them to cover more angles and stories than they could before.
Click here to read more.

Sun cuts include Kohn

The Baltimore Sun layoffs include Bernie Kohn, investigations editor and former president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
Kohn was previously the assistant managing editor for business before The Sun shuttered its business section last year.
The cuts equal about a quarter of the paper's editorial staff.
To learn more about who is gone from the paper click here.

Baltimore Sun cuts 61 from newsroom

The Baltimore Sun this week laid off 61 newsroom employees, or nearly a third of the total newsroom, according to an article on the paper's website.

The reductions hit nearly every type of job in the 205-person newsroom, including top editors, news photographers, critics, columnists, sports reporters, copy editors, page designers and graphic artists, according to The Newspaper Guild, which was notified of the union-represented layoffs. One news reporter was laid off as well, after leaving voluntarily. Most employees were notified Wednesday, with others laid off late Tuesday.

According to Poynter's Rick Edmonds, Ted Venetoulis, who has been trying to buy the Sun for years, thought that a deal was close at hand. However:

[...] by ditching so many experienced print editors, Tribune Co. could be signaling that it plans to continue running the operation itself rather than selling it.

A Baltimore Sun Media Group representative said the cuts were part of the paper's transition to a 24-hour multimedia news operation.
Click here for the article on the cuts, and here for the Poynter article.

How newsroom cuts may impact SEC

Reuters reports that Mary Schapiro, the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said she is concerned that job cuts in newsrooms may hinder the SEC's ability to crack down on illegal behavior.

"It's an absolute worry for me because I think financial journalists have in many cases been the sources of some really important enforcement cases and really important discovery of practices and products that regulators should be profoundly concerned about," the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission told Reuters Global Financial Regulation Summit in Washington on Tuesday. "But for journalists having been dogged and determined and really pursuing some of these things, they might not be known to the regulators or they might not be known for a long time," she said.

Schapiro then urged laid-off journalists to apply for jobs at the SEC. She said investigative journalism may be an "interesting skill set" that could be very useful to the agency. "[The SEC] has to really broaden its horizons and bring in people who think about things a little differently than it has historically," she said.

For more click here.

NY Times union tentatively agrees to pay cuts

The Newspaper Guild, which represents newsroom employees at The New York Times, has agreed in principle to a five percent pay cut on union employees, according to an article on the Times' website.

The company has said that the pay reduction would save $4.5 million and avert the elimination of about 80 jobs, mostly in the newsroom. But the union, in reaching the agreement, did not win assurances from the company that there definitely would not be layoffs through the end of the year. If employees are laid off during the period, however, severance packages would be paid based on employees’ salaries before the reduction.

Union members will vote on the pay cut next week. The move comes as the Times is looking for ways to save money after losing nearly $75 million in the first quarter of the year.
To read more, click here.

WSJ interactive map: "Pressure on the Presses"

The Wall Street Journal has an interactive map that details some of the hits the top 50 U.S. newspapers have taken between 2006 and 2009. A detailed chart also lists the same information for the top 100 newspapers. From job cuts to revenue losses to shutdowns, the multimedia piece illuminates the trouble the industry has faced in recent years.

For the piece click here.

Star Tribune, union agree on tentative deal

The Star Tribune, currently working through Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has reached a tentative deal with its newsroom union, according to MinnPost.com.

Workers who remain will get a 3 percent wage scale cut, a 30 percent across-the-board merit pay reduction (most of the newsroom gets so-called "overscale"), two furlough days a year for the next two years, and a pension freeze. Pension savings is not included in the $1.7 million the Star Tribune will save.

According to the article, Star Tribune management was not able to get rid of seniority when it comes to layoffs.
However, the union did agree to let management save a "small number" of less-senior employees in the event of more layoffs, so the seniority rule is no longer as concrete as it once was.
The agreement is expected to save the paper just under $1.7 million, plus pension savings.
Click here to read more.

McClatchy hit hard by 1st quarter ad revenue

McClatchy Co. announced its first quarter results Thursday, and reported a drop in advertising revenue of just under 30 percent, according to Editor & Publisher.
Overall losses also exceeded analysts' expectations:

McClatchy reported a loss of $37.7 million, or 45 cents a share, from a loss of $993,000, or 1 cent a share, in the first quarter of 2008. Adjusted for certain items, such as severance payments from a wave of layoffs, the loss from continuing operations was $22.9 million, or 28 cents a share. The consensus of analysts had been for an 11-cent loss per share.

In more positive news, print revenue increased slightly, and when employment advertising is excluded, digital advertising was up 28.7 percent.
Click here to read more.

Cuts on the Trib biz desk

Michael Miner of the Chicago Reader has a partial list of the staffers that were cut in the latest reductions at the Chicago Tribune.
On the business side he has listed four reporters staffers so far. The total number of employees cut will be about 53, so more names might be added in the following days.
Here's a partial list. For the full list click here.
* Susan Diesenhouse, Real Estate Feature Writer
* Eric Benderoff, Technology Reporter, Financial News
* James P. Miller, Corporate Strategy and Manufacturing Reporter, Financial News
* Joshua Boak, Business Reporter

CBSnews.com layoffs

Fishbowl NY and Huffington Post both report layoffs last week at CBSnews.com
Read here.

Prosper Out of Print

California-based Propser, a monthly magazine for the greater Sacramento market focusing on capturing "the entrepreneurial spirit of the people and organizations who are flourishing," is taking what seems to have become the path of choice in today's startup publishing market. The company is halting its print publication, laying off employees and taking time to ponder...can you guess what? Yes, they are considering online initiatives as a way to continue the Prosper brand.
Get more details on the changes in a video message here.

This Week's Movers

While the much-talked about BusinessWeek memo, announcing layoffs and a reorganization, is arguably the week's most buzzed job news, it wasn't all bad this week. Here are other changes:

• Caroline Waxler will join MainStreet.com, set to launch in early 2008, as the general manager and editor. A former Forbes reporter, Waxler was also recently the markets editor for the now-defunct Business 2.0. She starts her new role next week.

• Commonwealth Business Media's Peter Tirschwell moves from magazine group vice president to senior advisory. The vice president of business development, Liam Power, will take over Tirschwell's former role. Read more.

• CMP Channel's CRN and VARBusiness made several changes with four promotions and a new hire to gear up their coverage. Andrew Hickey, a TechTarget veteran, was named senior editor, covering infrastructure technologies. Edward F. Moltzen was promoted to Managing Editor Test Center. Moltzen covers systems and printers as well as peripherals and writes "The Chart," a blog about the business aspects of high tech. Jennifer Hagendorf Follet, moved up to Managing Editor Technology. For more moves and the entire release, click here.
  

• And popular tech columnist David Pogue was named a CNBC contributor. Read the earlier post here.

BusinessWeek: layoffs and staff shuffle

As many as a dozen BusinessWeek employees will be laid off as magazine combines it print and digital staff into a one editorial operation, according to a report from Folio.
An internal memo was given to staff on Wednesday by editor Stephen Adler.
Folio points out that the layoffs come as BusinessWeek experiences success. It's readership is up 3 percent and newsstand sales up 25 percent.
To read the full report click here.