AJC cuts 16 newsroom jobs

In 2007 the newsroom had more than 500 employees. With this round of cuts coming by the end of the year, it'll be in the 140s.

The AJC’s next digital expansion comes at the cost of more newsroom jobs - Atlanta Magazine

 

"All the affected employees, Riley said, will be eligible to apply for the new digital-focused positions."

Of course, the pay rate may not be as much.

 

I heard that Cox also laid off people in Dayton last week. Are the other papers next?

 

'Tis the season. (ducks).

 

Can't speak for the papers aside from that AJC report, but supposedly the central desk in Dayton -- which produces Ohio news sections, features sections for all Cox papers, and all Cox weeklies -- is cutting a few jobs (don't know exactly how many) because some of the work is being shifted to an outside contractor. The central desk in West Palm Beach (which includes the sports desk for all Cox papers) is unscathed, for now.

And according to a friend at the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, there's not much interest there so far in accepting Tribune Publishing's buyout offer. He knows of one production editor who is in his late 50s and taking the buyout for sure and a reporter who says he'll probably accept it. That's it at this point. The deadline is Oct. 23.

 

If AJC is really trying to be "more digital," why would they cut breaking news reporters? (The Atlanta Magazine story says the jobs of veteran reporters Mike Morris, Steve Visser, Dave Markiewicz and Alexis Stevens would be among those eliminated.) Obviously the answer is they are cutting older employees who make more money and whom management assumes "don't get it" when it comes to digital. Same thing expected in West Palm Beach. Haven't heard anything out of Austin, but you have to figure the same strategy will play out there.

 

That's another thing about the Trib situation in Fort Lauderdale: Anybody who accepts the buyout WILL be replaced, management says. But ... new hires better be willing to work cheap (around $35K a year in an area with a high cost of living) and have some digital savvy.

 

So let's say I was still there and took the buyout, effective Oct. 30, 2015.

They would be paying me a year's salary, while hiring a $35,000 replacement.

They would not begin to see a penny's savings until a month or so into the third year . . . around December 2017.

 

I did the same math when this plan was announced and reached the same conclusion. They must be so intent on resetting the pay scale and bringing in employees with digital knowledge that they're willing to endure some short- and medium-term financial pain (which will show up on Tribune's next few quarterly reports as "restructuring charges" or some such term). And there's no guarantee of long-term gain.

Then again, the newspaper we're talking about recently appointed co-managing editors (neither of whom are exactly journalistic heavyweights) and supposedly is paying them $150K a year apiece. Any cost-cutting plan should begin with a long, hard look at that gravy train -- but it probably won't.

 

Wait, buyouts in the newspaper business are a year's salary?

And people in the newspaper business say no to this?

 

It's a sliding scale. You need something like 27 or 28 years in the program to qualify for a full year's buyout.

 

Who says they're going to hire the replacement right away?