McClatchy layoffs?

Without backing corporate suits, it seems like they are installing moderately substantial change.

I've been in newsrooms where a priority is put on making sure there's a photo to CP 3A, and someone needs to have a daily piece to anchor a business page buried deep in a section. There was less priority to make sure some piece of mid-grade breaking news got online before 9:45 am. In theory, those would be switched (or the first two would not be considered priorities).

Is that reinvention? I dunno. It's a change one way or another, and a change that seems likely to piss off a good number of newspaper people for reasons.

 

Recent layoffs/buyouts in Columbia, S.C. ASE/presentation editor (and a hell of a graphic artist) gone. Asst. managing editor gone. One night editor gone. All this on the heels of features editor leaving a couple of weeks ago.

 

a.) Are there generally layoffs right before Christmas? b.) Is this particular chain the worst one right now financially? Seems like it's pretty bad. Or is Gatehouse a bit worse or Gannett? Seems to me McClatchey is a very very broke, bad chain.

 

Gatehouse and Gannett both are far worse than McClatchy.

Do some homework before you post, OK?

 

Once Holiday advertising is booked, chains usually do a round of layoffs. The third quarter results won't be released for a couple of weeks, but understand that layoffs are part of the operating philosophy now - by cutting ahead of the profit to create the margin that Wall Street can tolerate.

 

Who spoiled your drink? It's a question, dude. Why the anger? Far worse? I bet some beg to differ. That's a lot of editors getting laid off which makes me think that chain has hit desperation time if it is canning the suits. Or the suit wannabees.

 

No anger here. Gatehouse and Gannett both are far worse than McClatchy.

 

Interesting Dan. I'd suspect this year will be quite the bloodletting so to speak. I'd think with most print editions close to deceased the layoffs will be huge. Here's something I was wondering. Have you ever noticed that when a person is hired for a company, there is tons of paperwork, lots of required meetings, signing one's life away for so many little things. But when you get laid off it's so quick it's insane. Escorted out the door. Get your W2 in the mail on Jan. 25. That's it. Moral of the story. HR people are still safe for now.

 

Well you were scolding me so I thought you were upset.

 

I thought most sites had outsourced HR to the hubs

 

At one time I believe that McClatchey had a lot of pride in their papers. Certainly they were better than Gannett. McClatchey continues to seem to be less centralized to than Gannett and less likely to load their papers up with copy from national sources such as USA Today.

McClatchey also tried to be a better employer than Gannett. However, their relative generosity to their employees has left them with approximately 700 hundred million dollars that they owe their pension funds. In addition they bought Knight-Ridder for 4.5 billion in 2006, before the economic apocalypse of 2008-2009. They sold a bunch of papers but they still owe about 800 million in additional debt. With the collapse in revenues McClatchey is holding on by the fingernails financially.

McClatchey also got out of televisions decades ago. Gannett bought a lot of television stations. When Gannett separated into a newspaper and broadcasting companies the newspaper side only absorbed 400 million in log term debt. Gannett does not appear to have any material pension liability, probably because they never bothered much with employee pension plans. So Gannett is much stronger financially.

Gatehouse is relatively new. I have posted this before but think of them as liquidators. They typically pay four times cash flow. They gut staffs and try to maintain cash flow even as revenues decline. They want to get their money and profit back as quickly as possible. If the paper dies so what as long as they gout their money out in time.

 

I'm not sure but I think Fredrick was asking about the relative financial situations of those chains, not which is better in general.

That's the way I read it, at least.