Tag Archives: layoffs

My journalist heart breaks a little more as The Durham Herald-Sun moves copy desk to Kentucky

13 Aug

When I worked at The Herald-Sun we had a food critic. We had a religion reporter. A health reporter. A court reporter. A cops reporter. A county government reporter. An associate editorial page editor. An illustrator. A librarian. An obituary clerk.

And we had a lot more. When I worked at The Herald-Sun we had a full-time copy desk.

After tonight, there will no longer be a copy desk at Durham, North Carolina’s hometown newspaper.

Just like all those other positions we had when I worked there, the local copy desk is being eliminated. Page design and copy editing of the Durham, NC, newspaper will soon take place 622 miles away, in the Owensboro (Kentucky) Messenger-Inquirer newsroom.

When I worked at The Herald-Sun in 2004, I was one about 90 newsroom employees. When the copy desk is officially dissolved, only 20 editorial employees will reportedly remain.

In 2007, I spotted all these newspaper boxes behind The Herald-Sun's building. The paper's circulation was an estimated 50,000 in 2006 and stands at about 25,000 today.
In 2007, I spotted all these newspaper boxes behind The Herald-Sun’s building. The paper’s circulation was an estimated 50,000 in 2006 and stands at about 25,000 today.

Layoffs Were Once Unexpected

Newsroom layoffs aren’t surprises anymore. But they were seven years ago, when I took my first newspaper reporting job at The Herald-Sun. I was fresh out of grad school and landed the city hall beat at a 50,000-circulation family-owned newspaper. I thought I made it.

I packed all the clothes I could stuff into my VW Golf and took my first road trip half way across the country. I didn’t know anyone in North Carolina. Not a soul. But I didn’t care. I just scored a job at a family-owned newspaper. That meant job security. That meant excellent health insurance and Christmas bonuses. That meant working for a newspaper with soul.

I still remember the day the Paxton Media Group bought the 50,000-circulation newspaper from the Rollins family, which owned the paper for nearly 110 years. For months there were rumors that the paper was being sold. But we didn’t know who would buy us. And we certainly didn’t know what it would mean for our future.

The morning the deal went down in late 2004, I passed editor-in-chief Bill Hawkins on my way to the copy machine. I asked him how he was, not because I thought anything was wrong, but because that’s what you say when you pass the editor-in-chief in the hall. “Not good,” he said, and then walked into his office.

An hour or so later Hawkins was one of about 80 employees who were laid off. Employees were escorted to their cars. They couldn’t collect their belongings. They couldn’t say goodbye. They were part of the first sweeping newsroom layoffs in our country. Not long after that, layoffs like these would become business as usual for newspapers, with thousands of journalists losing jobs.

After that day, paranoia would sweep over me every time an editor walked down my row of cubes. I always thought I was one day away from getting laid off. So much for job security.

Circulation Starts to Sink

When I started at The Herald-Sun, the circulation was roughly 50,000. I thought I would work there for three to five years before looking for my next reporting gig at a bigger newspaper. Less than a year after the paper was sold, I started looking for a new journalism job. Newsroom morale was low. We were doing more with less. We weren’t delivering the same quality, hometown journalism that previously kept Durham residents from subscribing to our more sophisticated McClatchy-owned competitor, The News & Observer. After the sale, some Bull City residents even tossed their newspapers back into our parking lot.
I still have business cards leftover from my days at The Herald-Sun.

I still have business cards leftover from my days at The Herald-Sun.

I landed at The Island Packet, a McClatchy paper serving Hilton Head Island, SC, and the surrounding mainland communities. The circulation was small, about 22,000, but I was lured by the ocean and the prospect of moving up the McClatchy chain. That was before McClatchy bought Knight Ridder, the poorly-timed deal that saddled the company with so much debt it will likely never recover.

Some of my journalist friends questioned my decision to leave a 50,000-circulation newspaper for one less than half its size. But now, six years later, The Herald-Sun reportedly only maintains a circulation of about 25,000. Meanwhile, the small-town Island Packet is still holding on to its 22,000 readers.

I can’t imagine what morale must be like in that newsroom these days. But I have deep respect for the remaining journalists who help publish the paper every day. It’s just a shame that the Bluegrass State will soon have a hand in designing and proofreading our Bull City newspaper. But, sadly, The Herald-Sun is not alone.

Now This Is A Trend

In June, the Raleigh News & Observer announced it was transferring its copy editing and page design desk to Charlotte. And newspapers throughout the country are making similar moves (which almost always result in layoffs), according to the Chicago Tribune.

Me and my page designer gals, Andrea and Laura, being silly during one of our Girls Night Out adventures.

Me and my page designer gals, Andrea and Laura, being silly during one of our Girls Night Out adventures.

The best thing I got out of The Herald-Sun’s copy desk ended up having little to do with copy editing or design. Instead, I got friendship. A few page designers took me under their wings when I first moved to Durham and didn’t know a soul. They wined me and dined me. They were my first North Carolina friends.

Six years after leaving the paper, we still get together for dinner every other month or so despite living an hour apart, picking up right where we left off. And because of everything we went through at The Herald-Sun and as print journalists in general, we’ll always have a special bond that no layoffs, furloughs or pay cuts can ever take away.

(P.S. If you see any errors in this blog post, it’s because I didn’t have a copy editor).

McClatchy’s budget woes lead News and Observer to cut 70 positions

17 Jun

It’s another sad day for the newspaper industry, as McClatchy Co. announced it is cutting 1,400 jobs across the company. McClatchy owns 30 daily newspapers, including Raleigh’s News & Observer. The N&O announced yesterday that it is laying off 70 people, including 16 newsroom employees.

The N&O will also trim costs by combining its Business and City & State sections, reducing the amount of editions that provide tailored news to different circulation areas and by merging its sports, political and research departments with the Charlotte Observer’s departments, the paper reported. These changes come a week after the newspaper announced that it is raising subscription rates.

The move is meant to help ease McClatchy’s budget woes, according to the company’s news release about the layoffs.

McClatchy’s cash expenses were down 10.5% in the first quarter of 2008 and FTE (full-time equivalent employees) count was down 7.5% from prior year.

The moves announced today will produce annual savings of about $70 million from staff reductions as part of a plan to reduce overall expenses by $95 million to $100 million over the next four quarters. Combined with previous expense control initiatives, the company expects to reduce non-newsprint cash expense in the low double-digit percentage range over the balance of 2008 excluding severance costs of about $30 million.

I should note that I used to work at The Island Packet, a McClatchy-owned newspaper on Hilton Head Island, SC, before accepting my job here at WNCN. The Packet, which has a small staff of hardworking reporters, also suffered two layoffs — a reporter and advertising employee. In a memo to Packet staff, the publisher wrote:

We’re operating in a time of great change and challenge for our operations, for The McClatchy Company and for the newspaper industry overall. Increased competition and a pronounced economic downturn have combined to reduce revenues dramatically, and these cuts are part of the way we must respond.

Obviously the Internet and the economy is having a dramatic effect on the ability of newspapers to make the kind of profits Wall Street likes to see. But the suits seem to forget that while newspapers need to be repurposed, they still need to produce quality content. And engaging human interest stories, investigative reporting and holding the government accountable all take staff. When you eliminate newsroom staff, duties are shifted to reporters who are already busy with their own beats, or in some cases, those duties are eliminated altogether.

A sad day indeed.