'Chicago Tribune' Joins 'L.A. Times' in Large Job Cuts

By: E&P Staff The Chicago Tribune expects large layoffs in the next three weeks, likely "fewer than 100", Publisher David D. Hiller said in a memo to employees late Wednesday.

The announcement came the same day as Tribune Co. papers in Los Angeles and Orlando announced dozens of job cuts. "(W)ith other Tribune business units announcing cuts, and so many of you wondering about our plans, I wanted to share as many facts as I could today," Hiller wrote.

Hiller said the flagship Tribune was cutting some newsprint costs, "in part through product changes," and was reducing planned spending on promotion.

"But we have also concluded that it will be necessary to eliminate some employee positions," Hiller wrote. "We have tried to be as careful and thoughtful as possible. In many cases we will be able to eliminate positions that are currently open. The number of current employees whose jobs will be eliminated will likely be fewer than 100, spread across all of our departments." The Los Angeles Times announced 85 job cuts earlier today.

Buyouts are not planned, the memo indicates. Hiller said layoff decision would be finalized in the next two weeks, and people affected would be notified "promptly....Individuals whose positions are eliminated will be provided a severance package," he wrote.

In the Tribune on Thursday, Editor Ann Marie Lipinski said that her approximately 670-person newsroom will lose fewer than 30 positions, including some open jobs left unfilled. But she added that both the exact number and possible elimination of content have yet to be finalized.

Lipinski called the cuts the deepest at the paper in recent memory. She said the paper would be mindful in making the trims of their "impact on our readers, on our staff and on our newspaper."

"The cutbacks," the Tribune notes, "come as the paper looks to bulk up its round-the-clock Internet presence and hopes to stem a decline in circulation. The paper reported declines of 2.5 percent weekdays, to 586,122, and of 1.4 percent Sundays, to 950,582, for the six-month period that ended in September."

The Hiller memo alluded to Tribune Co.'s depressed stock price, and the call by some investors for a sale of Knight Ridder Inc. "We intend to be successful for the long term and that means dealing with these major changes in our business," Hiller wrote.

He said the newspaper would "innovate and change," and suggested that "there also may be some things we should stop doing, or do only on our websites instead of in print."

Hiller said the newspaper would continue to "grow audience across a family of products and channels-starting with the blue paper," the in-house name for the Chicago Tribune printed newspaper. To become the leading Chicago-area online news provider, Hiller said, "will require growing our 24/7 news reporting efforts and retooling our organization to fit that continuous cycle, and we have plans for doing that."

"We want to invest for growth at the same time that the revenue in many parts of our business is coming under increasing pressure," Hiller wrote. "The only real solution is to find costs to reduce where possible and to use the savings to help fund investment."