Daytona Beach officially sold

Re: Daytona Beach officially for sale

The sale is now official, to those HarborPoint dingbats.

Should be complete by the end of the month; layoffs appear likely.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/breakingnews/2010/03/judge-newspaper-sale-will-go-through.html

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/volusia/os-daytona-news-journal-sale-approved-20100323,0,6685680.story

 

Via Romenesko (Is it just me, or does the spin on this seem to negate the fact that a bunch of folks were laid off today?)

The expected new ownership of The Daytona Beach News-Journal informed all but 48 employees today that they would be retained.

The employees who were not retained were informed this morning and were offered a severance package, chief executive manager James Hopson said. The layoffs affected about 10 percent of the company's workforce of 470.

The change in ownership to Halifax Media will occur this week with Michael Redding becoming publisher on Thursday.

 

The new ownership will "retain 90 percent of the staff," according to the N-J.

"All but 48 people" will be retained.

It'd be nice if the story reflected the percentage of staff laid off since the beginning of this sorry saga.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/breakingnews/2010/03/new-ownership-will-retain-90-percent-of-news-journal-staff.html

 

I'll sign in for this one thread.

I've seen an unofficial newsroom layoff list; all but one of the people on the list are no longer listed on the NJ's newsroom contacts web page which seems to validate it, IMO. Included on that list are a handful of people who were probably going to leave anyway, along with the spouses of two sports staffers.

 

So who got the axe in Daytona Beach today?

 

Apparently they whacked about a fifth of their staff today.

 

In addition to yesterday's cuts?

They're forcing employees to reapply and treating everyone as new hires, as well as making them sign draconian non-compete clauses that apply to any publication owned by either of the companies involved in the purchase.

 

More like a tenth, and it was yesterday. A good many of them weren't going to want to hang around for the new management group anyway, including editorial cartoonist Bruce Beattie, and some (like executive editor Don Lindley) had left the company days ago. Among that group, it looks like many were singled out for culling by the new publisher, who a long time ago was the NJ's classified manager. The way Redding seemed to aggressively go after one spouse of the various the married couples on the editorial side has drawn some attention, too. The Davidsons encouraged marriages "in the building," apparently on the theory that it encouraged both spouses to stay longer.

 

Yeah, those newsroom romances are always destined for great things.

I worked in one where a few of those relationships combusted on site.

The grapevine can be shaky. I stand corrected. Still a lot of casualties.

 

Any of the cuts come in sports?

 

Not that I know of, but the wife of the AME/sports (who herself was the NJ's design chief) and the wife of one of his assistant sports editors (who herself was the NJ's food editor in the features office) are out of their jobs.

 

Obviously, the new boss doesn't like nepotism.