McLEAN, VA (December 4, 2008) – The layoffs and firings that started yesterday at newspapers owned by Gannett, including at the flagship USA Today, have been especially brutal, in addition to being poorly timed just weeks before Christmas.
It's hard news for the journalism world to swallow such massive layoffs of this scale, especially while some Gannett newspapers are reporting double-digit profits at dozens of the company's newspapers where the axe is swinging broadly.
Today a Gannett spokesperson said the cuts are being managed locally, at each newspaper, which is why as a company they've not released figures on specific jobs other than to say it's a 10 percent cut companywide. While early figures compiled paper-by-paper totaled 1,700 Gannett jobs cut, it looks like that number may well pass 2,000 by the end of the week.
In just the past week several thousand newspaper employees in America have lost their jobs, Cox Newspapers announced the closing of their Washington, DC, bureau, and the Tribune Co. will lay off more people at their flagship paper in Chicago.
Yesterday in Chicago the credit analyst Fitch Ratings predicted that the continued decline in advertising revenues will cause some newspapers to default on their debt in 2009, and rated the debt of two huge newspaper companies – The McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co. – ask "junk." Fitch also predicted that several cities could find themselves without daily print newspapers by 2010.
As many as 1,700 Gannett jobs were cut this week, from assistant managing editors on down, including reductions of up to 31 percent of the staff at one newspaper, The Salinas Californian, according to a reader tally on a blog published by a former Gannett worker, Jim Hopkins.
In addition to USA Today, Gannett publishes 85 community daily newspapers in the States. The company, based in McLean, VA, ordered at least a 10 percent across the board reduction in jobs in the newspaper division, which had as many as 30,000 employees, and this round of layoffs started this week.
In August, Gannett eliminated 1,000 jobs through layoffs, attrition, and buyouts, and in September approximately 1,000 newspapers managers were cut.
The list of numbers of jobs lost is large; newsrooms are taking big hits. Some examples of cuts at Gannett newspapers include the paper in Phoenix, AZ (97 jobs); Asbury Park, NJ (92 jobs); Battle Creek, MI (50 jobs out of 105 employees); Cherry Hill, NJ (59 jobs); Fort Myers, FL (80 jobs); Louisville, KY (69 jobs); Nashville, TN (92 jobs); Des Moines, IA (74 jobs); and in Richmond, IN (68 jobs out of 145 employees).
In McLean, 20 jobs were cut from the USA Today newsroom and more cuts are expected this week in other departments.
In towns small and large across the country Gannett newspapers are slowly reporting their individual losses. In Wisconsin, where Gannett publishes 10 daily newspapers, 92 jobs were cut and the Gannett-owned Denmark Press and the Wrightstown Post Gazette will shut down.
Ironic is the news that the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported a 42.5 percent profit margin just weeks ago, at the end of November, yet this week cut 22 jobs.
At the Indianapolis Star, 54 jobs were cut (21 from the newsroom), including photographers Steve Healey and James Yee.
In Ohio, a Gannett printing plant will shut down in February. The Advantage Press employed 50 people, and printed the Chillicothe Gazette and the Lancaster-Fairfield Advertiser.
In New York, where Gannett operated newspapers in Vestal, Johnson City, Elmira, and Ithaca, 40 jobs were eliminated. In New Jersey, 206 employees at six Gannett papers were cut.
All Gannett newspapers have been suffering in the same economy that's led to historic newspaper firings and layoffs this year, but papers in California and Florida have been hit especially hard by the burst of the housing bubble, the disappearance of automobile and classified sales advertising, and the credit crunch.
At The Salinas Californian, 21 people lost their jobs Tuesday and Wednesday and another 14 will be cut over the next eight weeks, a loss of 31 percent of the paper's 130 employees.
Gannett today also announced that it has started a cash tender offer for any and all of its outstanding Floating Rate Notes Due 2009. The tender offer is $950 per $1,000 principal amount of the Notes, plus interest.
As the year approaches an end, Gannett isn't the only large company making serious personnel cutbacks in the face of a still-failing economy.
Today AT&T announced that 12,000 jobs – 4 percent of its workforce – will be cut, Adobe is cutting 600 jobs, and Credit Suisse will cut 5,300 jobs globally. Add to that today's announcements of personnel cutbacks from DuPont and Viacom Inc., and the total is 21,250 jobs lost in American just today.
Meanwhile retail spending for the holiday season is in a slump, and the Big 3 automakers returned to Congress today, hat in hand, seeking a government bailout of $34 billion before they run out of cash.
