Posted on 06/16/2008 10:27:52 AM PDT by BurbankKarl
McClatchy Co. plans to cut its work force by about 10% amid a difficult advertising market as the media company reported a 15% drop in May revenues, hurt by a 17% drop in advertising sales.
Chief Executive Gary Pruitt said, "The effects of the current national economic downturn -- particularly in real estate, auto and employment advertising -- make it essential that we move faster now to realign our workforce and make our operations more efficient."
He apologized for making "the painful announcement," but added, "We're taking this action to help ensure a healthy future for our company."
The move underscores the industry's growing difficulty as readers and marketers shift away from newspapers. The downturn is particularly painful for McClatchy, which owns large newspapers in Florida and California, states hit hard by the real-estate meltdown.
The work-force cuts at the nation's third-largest newspaper company will involve about 1,400 full-time employees through voluntary and involuntary departures as well as attrition, and save McClatchy about $70 million annually. The firm said it will provide severance payments and benefit continuation to affected employees.
McClatchy will retain a strategic focus on sales, news and online operations as it realigns operations, "with decisions about the size and profile of changes differing by location."
The company -- which publishes about 30 daily newspapers, including the Miami Herald, Kansas City Star and Sacramento Bee -- noted that between the end of 2006 and April, the work force was already cut by 13% through attrition and "selected job eliminations" via outsourcing.
Mr. Pruitt emphasized that the move is part of the company's ongoing transformation, and "not solely a response to today's adverse conditions."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
ping
Yes, we’ve been all over this one since early today. I’m enjoying it entirely too much. I worry about myself sometimes, lol.
The author of that story is a guy named Tom Lasseter (sp?), who used to write mainly for the Miami Herald. He is the main reason why I cut my subscription to the Herald. (Well, also the lack of editorial supervision that allowed Arab propagandists like Bassem Mroue, Adnan Hajj, etc to slip articles into the Herald where they they talked about Al Queda “terrorists” (their quotes in the article!)). Lasseter cannot write a positive article about the U.S. military to save his life. Unfortunately for him, the leftist slant of the Herald is now causing their readership to tank (they will come up with every OTHER reason of course!), so Lasseter may have to find a new line of work.
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