Roanoke Times

[Bud_Bundy]

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.

 

[Mr. X]

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?

 

[LanceyHoward]

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.

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?

 

[FileNotFound]

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.

 

[ChadFelter]

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

And Alden would have cut 25

 

[Fredrick]

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

 

[HanSenSE]

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

 

[Sam Mills 51]

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

Working 2MCM's corners, eh?

 

[Cosmo]

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?

 

[Cosmo]

What a weird turn here ...

 

[Tarheel316]

What a weird turn here ...

You got that right.

 

[tapintoamerica]

You got that right.

That is nothing less than astounding.

 

[Mr. X]

Did someone voluntarily leave to rescind that layoff? Were other people laid off to prevent this layoff?

 

[SportsGuyBCK]

Did someone voluntarily leave to rescind that layoff? Were other people laid off to prevent this layoff?

It smells more like a major advertiser/Hokies booster called up whoever is in charge and made them an offer they couldn't refuse ...

 

[Cosmo]

The Times also decided yesterday to stop having a local reporter covering statewide politics. So happy to be out of newspapers. What a mess.

 

[Bronco77]

Can't speak with much authority on what's going on there now, but that paper had one hell of a sports section back in the day. I interviewed for a sports desk job there in 1985 and figured it had to be one of the best sections in the country in a market of that size.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

It smells more like a major advertiser/Hokies booster called up whoever is in charge and made them an offer they couldn't refuse ...

I would guess a local car dealer called them up and said, “This is what happens to our advertising if you don’t cover the Hokies anymore.”

 

[LanceyHoward]

I would guess a local car dealer called them up and said, “This is what happens to our advertising if you don’t cover the Hokies anymore.”

Roanoke is a paper Buffett sold to Lee along with a bunch of other Virginia papers, including Richmond. Does Roanoke provide coverage of Virginia Tech to all the other papers in the state. And conversely, was the state politics reporter laid off made because the decision was made to have Richmond provide the coverage.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

Working 2MCM's corners, eh?

Y’all could just tag me.

 

[Jesus_Muscatel]

Can't speak with much authority on what's going on there now, but that paper had one hell of a sports section back in the day. I interviewed for a sports desk job there in 1985 and figured it had to be one of the best sections in the country in a market of that size.

Yeah I interviewed there around 2000 or so and was fairly impressed. It was family owned then, right?