Media News - Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Gannett will cut 10 percent of newspaper jobs

Gannett Co Inc, the largest U.S. newspaper publisher, is planning to cut about 10 percent of jobs at its local papers as it fights advertising declines made worse by the global financial crisis. It is the second round of layoffs that Gannett has planned in the past two months. In August, Gannett said it would eliminate 1,000 newspaper jobs, with 600 being laid off. The latest round will be all layoffs, according to a memo sent to staff by Newspaper Division President Robert Dickey on Tuesday. Gannett does not release employee headcount numbers. Based on the previous 1,000 cuts, which totaled 3 percent of staff, the division would have more than 32,000 employees. Ten percent of that would be about 3,200 positions. Calculating the exact number of people who will be cut in this latest round is hard, however. The division's headcount includes hundreds of workers at USA Today who will not be affected, spokeswoman Tara Connell said. Instead, it will be employees at the more than 80 local daily papers Gannett publishes and owns from coast to coast, including The Arizona Republic in Phoenix; the Tallahassee Democrat in Florida; the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and The Journal News in Westchester County, New York. Publishers also have discretion to find ways to cut their payroll by 10 percent, which may not involve cutting an immediate 10 percent of those employees, Connell said. The publisher's plans are due by November 14. (Reuters)

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