Layoffs

The New Orleans Times-Picayune is losing a large chunk of its staff and may cease daily publication, the New York Times reported late last night.

Owner Advance Publications/Newhouse Newspapers may be following the Ann Arbor model, in which it transformed the Ann Arbor News from a print to a primarily web-focused publication, cutting staff in the process.

Editor Jim Amoss is said to be leaving after assisting with the transition. Also departing will be managing editors Peter Kovacs and Dan Shea.

Gambit, a local NOLA weekly, has more from shocked employees: “All employees with whom Gambit spoke — even longtime senior writers and editors — said they learned of their fates from The New York Times report….’I had to find this out by Twitter,’ said [a reporter]. ‘Do I go in to the office tomorrow? Do I even have a job to go in to tomorrow? I don’t know. No one has called me. No one has said anything.’”

Also according to Gambit, the layoffs are likely to target at least 50 reporters, bringing the newsroom staff down by one third. The remainder will likely take salary cuts and become bloggers.

If the Times-Picayune owners are truly emulating the Ann Arbor model, the cuts are likely to be deeper than just those 50. When the Ann Arbor News closed, about 10 percent of the 274 employees got jobs at the new AnnArbor.com.

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Despite several expansions and acquisitions, it seems Meredith Corporation is preparing for a downturn.

As reported by The New York Post, yesterday Meredith announced cutbacks of 80 people. A spokesperson confirmed that specific number to the newspaper after rumors swirled the pink slips were going to exceed 100.

The company issued a statement: “We must dedicate resources to meet the demands of the evolving business landscape, and operate as efficiently as possible. As part of the process, today we are announcing selected work-force reductions of 80 employees companywide. These actions will enable us to allocate additional resources to our key strategic-growth intiatives.”

As The New York Post pointed out, it appeared the media company led by CEO Stephen Lacy was doing well as of late. In 2011, Meredith purchased Family Fun from Walt Disney for about $20 million. Plus, it grabbed Everyday with Rachael Ray from Reader’s Digest and also purchased Eating Well, as the article reported.

Even in January things seemed to be in full glory when Meredith purchased Allrecipes.com. Despite these big moves, the layoffs are reportedly the result of a sudden decrease in advertisements; the first quarter of 2012 reflected ad page reductions of 17.8 percent.

As of tomorrow, the editorial staff of Out will be laid off with one month’s severance, according to Capital. That said, editor-in-chief Aaron Hicklin has indicated he’ll bring back “most” editors into Grand Editorial, a new company he’s building.

Hicklin indicated there won’t be changes to the magazine’s content or the frequency of issues. He told Capital, “This was not a cost-cutting measure.”

Grand Editorial’s plans are to work on projects to produce magazines for corporate clients, as pointed out by Capital. With plans to offer long-term contracts to his editors for his new venture, they’ll get flexible hours as contracted freelancers. Plus, they will be able to work on other projects within the new venture.

He explained to Capital, “I felt I was at a place where I had enough experience and relationships to parlay that into an agency that would provide a sort of editorial consultancy and content for other titles and corporate clients.”

In an official press release published by Capitol, Hicklin expressed his excitement for the new venture which includes Out as a client. He stated, “Grand Editorial will include familiar faces and core talent from Out. It’s no secret that the media landscape is changing rapidly, and I think our talent will find this new approach both more flexible as well as empowering.

You’d think that a magazine full of half-naked ladies would be hard to kill, but Maxim’s layoffs yesterday say otherwise.

The lad mag laid off just under half of the staffs of the editorial, web and photo teams–there had been 13 staffers there, and six jobs were cut, TechCrunch reports.

Maxim’s format is actually more vulnerable than most, TechCrunch says. “Its format of short, punchy 1-page and half-page features is being cannibalized by humor websites like BuzzFeed and Cracked[...]” while porn is basically free online now. Its web presence, TechCrunch says, has little to differentiate itself from other men’s interest sites.

Senior editor Seth Porges is one of the staffers confirmed to have gotten pink-slipped

Last month, the Philadelphia Media Network said it had to get rid of 37 staffers.

It asked for buyout volunteers before resorting to layoffs.

The Guild says it received 21 volunteers to take buyouts at the Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com. The company is now saying it will conduct an additional 19 layoffs.

The Guild says that those on the layoff list include: Two full-time Inquirer reporters, three part-time Inquirer reporters, four part-time Inquirer copy editors, one part-time Inquirer artist, one full-time Daily News reporter, one part-time Daily News reporter, three part-time Daily News copy editors, one full-time Daily News desk assistant, one Daily News part-time editorial clerk. and two part-time Philly.com multi-media content producers.

“It is our position that between the significant savings of the salaries of the members who volunteered to leave, and the concessionary contract in 2010 that gave the new owners $6 million in cost cuts from our union, that enough is enough.”

Well, the company said it needed 37, and only got 21. But they’re asking for 40, now, so neither side is really making much sense right now.

Guild president Dan Gross and executive director Bill Ross wrote that they believe Philadelphia Media Network is attempting to cut more costs in order to make the papers look like an attractive investment. The company made $4 million last year.

Creative Loafing, the company that owns the Chicago Reader, City Paper, and Creative Loafing Atlanta, has announced cuts in staffing and pay at the three papers.

At CL Atlanta, four positions were let go. The paper is saying farewell to managing editor/digital and food critic Besha Rodell, staff writer Scott Henry, arts writer Curt Holman, and special projects director (and former managing editor) Chanté LaGon.

At the Washington City Paper, some employees had their hours reduced to part-time, but no staffers were cut. At all three papers, everyone got a 5% pay cut.

Washington City Paper publisher Amy Austin said that she was looking for a new owner, preferably local, for the paper, Poynter’s Andrew Beaujon (himself a City Paper veteran) reports.

The owner of Maine newspaper publisher Village NetMedia announced Friday that he would be ceasing operations of his four papers, effective immediately.

That means 56 people are losing their jobs, the Bangor Daily News reports. There will be no severance.

The four weekly papers and related websites that are being shuttered served Rockland (The Village Soup Gazette), Belfast (The Village Soup Journal), Bar Harbor (the Bar Harbor Times), Augusta (the Capital Weekly), and entertainment rag The Scene.

“The profound changes in the newspaper publishing business, a weak economy and our investment in new products created severe financial challenges. Over the recent months, I have worked with outside professionals to achieve a financial restructuring that would allow us to continue. These efforts failed as of 3 p.m. today, March 9, 2012. We can no longer sustain our operations,” owner Richard Anderson said in a statement.

Before the Village Soup papers were purchased by Village NetMedia in June 2008, they were called The Courier-Gazette in Rockland, The Camden Herald in Camden, the Republican Journal in Belfast, and the Bar Harbor Times. The first three of those papers are each more than 140 years old, and the Bar Harbor Times was nearly 100 years old.

The Bangor Daily News printed a follow-up yesterday about what’s in store for the laid-off Rockland employees. On Monday, they met with a career counselor from the state’s rapid response team.

That counselor’s former job? Editing the Camden Herald, a job he lost when Village NetMedia purchased the paper in 2008.

The Wall Street Journal (and AllThingsD) is confirming the rumors that Yahoo plans to lay off thousands of people as soon as the end of March.

PR and marketing, “research, marginal businesses and weaker regional efforts are among those considered as potential targets.”

The company employs more than 14,000 employees plus software contractors; a source told Kara Swisher that each unit would need to show significant savings or a “clear path” to revenue growth. “It’s going to be deep,” that source said.

Final numbers have yet to be announced. A Yahoo spokesman would only email the following statement: “Our leadership is engaged in a process that will generate significant strategic change at Yahoo, but final decisions have not yet been made at this point. Beyond that, we will not comment.”

Sarah Lacy at PandoDaily is reporting that AOL is planning to lay off hundreds of employees next week.

Some cuts “will undoubtably come from the bloated Patch division, but not all,” she said.

Business Insider has a slightly different story: their source said that AOL is indeed planning to lay off some people, but not nearly as many as hundreds, and that the cuts will come from the West Coast team that works on products like About.me, Editions (“the app for when you cr*p“) and other products that don’t drive traffic to the Huffington Post.

We’ll see next week, we s’pose.

Two anchors in small-town Oregon are losing their jobs as their parent station is eliminating their positions, the (Douglas County, Ore.) News-Review reports.

Dan Bain, who has anchored the evening news on KPIC in Roseburg, Ore., for 20 years, will lose his job March 9, along with Tim Novotny, of KCBY in Coos Bay, Ore.

Parent company Fisher Broadcasting is planning to shut down the anchor desks at both stations, and instead staff KPIC and KCBY with reporters only—no anchors or news directors.

The reporters will submit their stories to parent station KVAL in Eugene, Ore., and anchors there will present them.

“We hope what we’re doing will enhance our news operations,” general manager Greg Raschio told the News-Review.

Bain received word two weeks ago that his contract wouldn’t be renewed; that meeting came, the News-Review said, just days after newspaper personnel chatted with Bain while he was filming a story at the paper. During that discussion, Bain, 61, said he planned to keep working at KPIC until he was 65.