NEWARK, NJ (December 16, 2008) – Within weeks of 152 of the Star-Ledger's newsroom taking buyouts to help New Jersey's largest daily newspaper survive, the newspaper is in the process of doubling the size of its internship program to fill reporting and copy editing spots with young, inexperienced, $17 an hour with no benefits, college interns.
Former NPPA member William Chang, who is now director of career services at City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, told News Photographer magazine today that it's true. The Star-Ledger is filling holes in the staff by seriously expanding it's internship program, hiring up to 20 new interns for one year stints as bureau reporters and copy editors, positions that were just recently vacated by veteran journalists.
In previous years the newspaper had eight to 10 internships.
"I'm not surprised," Pim Van Hemmen told News Photographer today. Last week he took the Star-Ledger's buyout from his job as assistant managing editor of digital news.
"This is a publisher [George Arwady] who wouldn't let any of the advertising people take the buyouts, just the journalists. He believes that the only thing he needs to do is to sell more ads, that if he can just sell more ads and reduce the costs of putting out a newspaper, they'll be fine." The newsroom positions were not unionized.
Some journalism professionals might see it as ironic that the Star-Ledger's owners are comfortable with inexperienced interns as reporters and copy editors, while at the same time advertising for experienced advertising sales people for jobs that include full medical coverage and a pension, a 401K, and salaries with earnings in six figures. Before the buyouts, the average reporter with at least six years of experience made between $90K and $100K annually.
It was only a few months ago that Arwady was threatening to close the newspaper unless he got three concessions: a new contract with union drivers, a new contract with union mailers, and at least 200 employees to sign up for buyouts (100 from the newsroom, 100 from other departments). In the end, the company accepted 152 newsroom buyouts from the 169 who stepped forward, and the total buyouts across the company totaled nearly 250. Before the buyouts there were 338 employees in editorial.
The Star-Ledger is owned by Advanced Publications Inc. The company has lost money for the last three years and was projecting losses between $30 and $40 million for 2008 without the personnel cuts. But some insiders say the Star-Ledger had already lost more than $50 million by September, and may really end up losing as much as $70 million by the end of the year, and that a number of their advertisers are bankrupt. The paper's daily circulation is around 350,000.
Chang said he was an NPPA member early in his career when he was a photographer before he "switched to the word side."
"Photography can be very competitive, you know," he said today from CUNY.
