McClatchy layoffs?

10 layoffs at The Star

 

It's so predictable for these chains. Twice a year lay off about 10 people. You can do the math on how much money that means for the CEOs who in the winter need to buy snowmobiles and in the summer need to get the boats upgraded.

 

Among the larger papers Miami, Kansas City, Charlotte, Wichita, Columbia, the El Nuevo Herald, Lexington and Tacoma all saw more than 50% drops. The amazing paper is Ft. Worth that only saw about a five percent decline.

 

At Gatehouse Fortress, which manages the company, gets 10% so in this case the salary of one person.

 

Including a 38-year veteran of the place, I heard.

 

"To date, KCUR has confirmed pop writer Tim Finn; photographers Allison Long and David Pulliam; enterprise reporter David Frese; and editors Tod Palmer, Greg Branson, and Michelle Smith, among the layoffs. Business editor Keith Chrostowski, who's worked for the paper since 1975, is taking retirement."

Kansas City Star Lays Off 10 Employees, Part Of Midwest McClatchy Reorganization

 

When I started in South Florida in the late '80s, I think the Herald's circulation was close to 100,000 in the southern half of Broward County alone.

 

I continue to think that at some point either Tronc will buy Miami and combine it with Ft. Lauderdale or Gatehouse will buy both and combine all three papers.

 

In 2007 Fresno had daily circulation of 150,000. That is substantially higher than Sacramento as of 12/31/2017, which is the second biggest paper at McClatchy and has a circulation of 122,000.

Those were the days.

 

I was one of those laid off in June 2008 from the Sun Herald in Biloxi. Our staff at the Sun Herald had an SE, a Saints/GA writer, a preps writer, a columnist, a Southern Miss/outdoors guy and a sports copy editor, who ran the desk five nights a week. I was the desk guy.

Now the circulation has declined 46 percent and the sports staff is an army of one. Wow...just wow.

 

Instead of an asteroid striking the world of newspapers and killing all the dinosaurs, it's been a long, slow death by a thousand paper cuts.

Not sure which way is better. But they're both depressing as hell.

 

From 2008:


"We're not interested in dying by 1,000 cuts," Zell said. "We're doing everything we can to make this downsizing happen as quickly and as painlessly as possible."


Tribune may be over worst