The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky. has said today that they will lay off 15 employees as part of the larger 1000 position job cut expected across Gannett Company, Inc.
Jim Hopkins, a former editor with Gannett, posted rumors on his blog that the major media organization would be dropping 3 percent after obtaining a memo from The Daily Times publisher Rick Jensen.
This morning he updates that the Kentucky paper was one of the first to publicly report the information on their site.
As mentioned in the Courier-Journal release, publisher Arnold Garson tries to soften the blow by explaining that the job cuts at his paper are nothing compared to what other papers have been going through this year:
“As you all know, the newspaper industry — like many other businesses and industries — is in the midst of a difficult economic time,” Garson wrote, adding that the company doesn’t see the present trend of declining revenues improving anytime soon.
Meanwhile, Debbie Abels sent a memo out today to employees at McClatchy's Rock Hill, S.C. Herald according to Romenesko’s blog.
The Herald and McClatchy continue to manage through an economic downturn that is having an unprecedented negative effect on revenues, and, therefore, our financial health. While we have taken many steps to reorganize and streamline operations to respond to changing business models and these economic challenges, we need to do more to control expenses.
As an important part of that effort, we are implementing an across-the-board, one-year wage freeze effective September 1, 2008. This means that if you are scheduled to receive a merit or salary review between September 1, 2008 and August 31, 2009, your review will occur one year later than scheduled. For example, if your next salary review date is March 1, 2009, the salary review will be postponed until March 1, 2010. You will, however, receive regularly scheduled performance reviews during this period.
While the cuts so far for Gannett seem like they will be spread out across the board, neither of these announcements are a good sign for the biz.
