More Cuts at Projo and 200 Slashed at GateHouse Papers Across the U.S.—Stock Tumbles
Friday, May 24, 2019
The latest reports are that as many as six more staffers in the Providence Journal newsroom have been cut, including sports and news staffers.
Managing Editor Alan Rosenberg did not respond to a request for comment on the layoffs. Across the country, GateHouse -- the Providence Journal’s parent company -- slashed a reported 200 jobs on Thursday.
Mike Reed of the Projo's parent company told Business Insider that the cuts were "immaterial" to the company.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“Mike Reed — CEO of GateHouse’s parent company, New Media Investment Group — told Poynter media business analyst Rick Edmonds, ‘We are doing a small restructuring — at least that’s what I would call it — that I’m sure will be misreported. We have 11,000 employees. This involves a couple of hundred,’” reports Poynter.
"Today, @GateHouse_Media laid off 25% of our newsroom. We’re down to six people (including a digital editor and sports editor) to put out a paper seven days a week. Gatehouse decided we no longer needed a night editor and our executive editor. How’s this going to work? #gatehouse," Tweeted Whitney Lehnecker of the Daily Commercial in Leesburg, Florida.
In Worcester, both GateHouse owned publications -- the Telegram and Worcester Magazine -- saw staffing slashed. Worcester Magazine’s editor Walter Bird Jr. was one of the staff reportedly cut.
Worcester Business Journal reported, "Worcester Magazine’s Editor Walter Bird and Arts & Entertainment Editor Josh Lyford were laid off, leaving reporter Bill Shaner to run the only weekly alternative paper in the city.”
Most Important to the Company
Most concerning to the media company’s executives may be the performance of the stock.
On Thursday, the stock closed at $9.22 a share — a loss of 51 percent from the 52 week high of $19.10. Some are reporting that the layoffs are tied to a $100 million stock buyback.
The cuts come just days after Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times said that he believes most local newspapers will close in the next few years. He made the comments before the INMA World Congress of News Media.
Baquet said:
"The future of newspapers: “The greatest crisis in American journalism is the death of local news. ... I don’t know what the answer is. Their economic model is gone. I think most local newspapers in America are going to die in the next five years, except for the ones that have been bought by a local billionaire. ...
“I don’t know what the answer is, but I think that everybody who cares about news — myself included, and all of you — should take this on as an issue. Because we’re going to wake up one day and there are going to be entire states with no journalism or with little tiny pockets of journalism. … I’m not worried about Los Angeles and New York. I don’t know what the model is for covering the school boards in Newark, New Jersey. That makes me nervous.”
This story was first published 5/23/19 7:01 PM
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