Monday, March 9, 2009

The Herald (Rock Hill) to eliminate 6 postions, cut wages

The The Herald in Rock Hill, S.C. will eliminate 6 positions and implement wage reductions, according to an email tip. Employees making more than $25,000 a year will receive a 2 1/2 percent pay cut. An official email from the publisher is expected later today.

UPDATE: Here is The Herald's report:
The Herald will eliminate positions, including some through layoffs, and reduce pay for most employees because of declining revenue and the deepening recession, the newspaper's publisher said today.

Six of the company's 95 employees will be affected by the staff reductions, Herald Publisher Debbie Abels said.

All employees making $25,000 or more will see salary reductions ranging from 2.5 to 10 percent, depending on their level of pay, Abels said.

The cuts are part of the McClatchy Co.'s plan to eliminate 15 percent of its workforce. The company said this morning that 1,600 positions will be cut in an effort to save more than $100 million.

The positions affected have not been announced. Those laid off will receive a severance package, Abels said.

The pay cuts will take effect April 13, Abels said. Employees' wages were frozen by the company last September for 12 months. Abels said that will continue for all of 2009.

In addition to staffing and salary reductions, The Herald is saving money by outsourcing the printing and distribution of the newspaper to its sister paper, The Charlotte Observer, and changing the format of its TV and entertainment sections.

The cost-control efforts come as McClatchy faces plunging ad revenues that are plaguing the entire publishing sector, as well as trying to recover $5.3 million owed by newspapers it had sold to companies that have recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.


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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Don't Go Changing (MNI), To Try and Please Me..." (Billy Joel)

The 10 Major Newspapers That Will Either Fold or Go Digital Next
Yahoo! NewsMarch 09, 2009

Over the last few weeks, the newspaper industry has entered a new period of decline. The parent of the papers in Philadelphia declared bankruptcy as did the Journal Register chain. The Rocky Mountain News closed and the Seattle Post Intelligencer, owned by Hearst, will almost certainly close or only publish online.

Hearst has said it will also close The San Francisco Chronicle if it cannot make massive cuts at the paper. The most recent rumor is that the company will fire half of the editorial staff. That action still may not be enough to make the property profitable.

24/7 Wall St. has created its list of the ten major daily papers that are most likely to fold or shut their print operations and only publish online.

The properties were chosen based on the financial strength of their parent companies, the amount of direct competition that they face in their markets, and industry information on how much money they are losing.

Based on this analysis, it is possible that eight of the fifty largest daily newspapers in the United States could cease publication in the next eighteen months.

1. The Philadelphia Daily News 2. The Minneapolis Star Tribune 3. The Miami Herald 4. The Detroit News 5. The Boston Globe 6. The San Francisco Chronicle. 7. The Chicago Sun Times 8. NY Daily News 9. The Fort Worth Star Telegram 10. The Cleveland Plain Dealer

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...

Anonymous said...

"I hate you just the way you are...."

Do I hear 18 days, instead of months?

Anonymous said...

If each paper would listen to their credit manager/credit staff, follow that advise, and stand firm behind that financial position, there is money to be recovered/collected in several legal ways (even in a bankruptcy) but all too often those of another genre (department) "take the authority to make the decisions" for the sake of "new advertising or appease the big customer syndrome". That includes Corp decision makers......

If MNI had let people do the job they pay them for (in all departments), the situation MIGHT not be as bad as it has become.

Anonymous said...

Severance package 2 weeks for each year of service, minimum 4 weeks, maximum 26 weeks. Purely seniority-based. Last hired, first fired.

Anonymous said...

How come they never cut the fat at the top??? They could save a ton of money and get rid of some useless people. Start with Pruitt and work your way down. Does each paper need it's own publisher??? Fire half of them and go to regional publishers. i would love to see ours at The Sun News gone. She is always so "pleased" to announce layoffs and cuts. A ton of people would be really pleased to see her go.