Roanoke Times

Tweet from the Guild there says Lee is laying off 9 people in the newsroom, cutting 20 percent of the remaining staff. The tweet says there are now 37 reporters, editors, photographers, copy editors and other professionals. Also, the Roanoke Times building is up for sale.

 

Please put these layoffs into historical perspective. When were the last layoffs before these? How many people were laid off?

How big was the staff five years ago, 10 years ago and more?

 

Lee owns most of the largo papers in the state outside the Tidewater. Are they moving to some sort of hub for the state? Are they moving to a statewide paper with a couple local stories inserted into each paper? And if the building is being sold where will they print?

 

Gannett would have cut probably about 12 more from a paper that size.

 

And Alden would have cut 25

 

Yes that seems like a large amount of reporters for this era. I'd think there would have been more cuts.

 

Obligatory "What's Mary's cut?" post. Carry on

 

Working 2MCM's corners, eh?

 

They laid off their Virginia Tech football reporter, who was pretty well respected. I mean, if you're in Roanoke and you don't cover Tech, what are you actually doing?

 

What a weird turn here ...

 

You got that right.

 

That is nothing less than astounding.