Philadelphia Inquirer Lays Off 68; Online Saves a Few

The strike at the Philadelphia Inquirer didn’t happen, but if there was one now there would be many less people on the picket line. Sixty-eight newsroom employees — 17 percent of the staff left after earlier cuts — were laid off today. Reporting on itself, The Inquirer said the cuts will save $6.8 million a year. The piece went on to note that lead owner Brian Tierney “said recently that he intended to invest $20 million in marketing, plant modernizations, and a jazzed-up Web site.” It’s the latest moment of uncertainty for a staff that has been through a lot. AdAge has the history: “Philadelphia Media Holdings — a private consortium of area businesspeople — bought the Inquirer and Daily News from McClatchy Co. over the summer. McClatchy sold the paper, which it itself acquired in its acquisition of Knight-Ridder earlier this year, because of the advertising and circulation trends at the paper.” Those trends, of course, were not pointed upward.
Even more might want to go. Editor & Publisher reports that the Newspaper Guild was suggesting that staffers not being laid off who might want to leave sometime “sometime soon should consider taking a voluntary layoff as a way to reduce the number of forced job cuts.” (Philadelphia Weekly has been covering labor relations at the two dailies closely.)
A small number of those who were to be laid off got reprieves at the to-be-“jazzed-up” Philly.com website, but a quick look at a PhillyNews blog shows how hard this is hitting the newspaper as a whole and individuals in particular. Go down to the comments for two signs of the times: commiseration from the great radio journalist (and also laid off recently) Michael Goldfarb — and job listings for a daily in a smaller market.
Related:
Philadelphia Newspaper Strike Deadline Thursday Night; Union Plans Competitive Online Newspaper
CareerBuilder Loses Philly.com; Monster Gets First Major Newspaper Deal
New Philly Ownership Team Plans To Grow Online Segment

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