By: Jim Rosenberg Earlier this month the Vincennes (Ind.) Sun-Commercial reportedly laid off 20 or more staffers, from the newsroom to the mailroom, and prepared to move printing to a sister Paxton Media daily, the Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.
Publisher Vickie Palmer did not return a telephone call inquiring about the changes.
The Messenger-Inquirer sustained an undisclosed number of job losses the same week. Its publisher, Bob Morris, confirmed that his 27,276-circulation (29,621 Sunday) paper "will begin printing [the Sun-Commercial] this Sunday night, the 24th" on its four-unit Goss Metro, a doublewide press. With about one-third the Messenger-Inquirer's press run, the weekday and Sunday Sun-Commercial has operated a five-unit Goss Urbanite, a two-around singlewide press.
Owensboro is approximately 85 miles from Vincennes, but facilitating the production consolidation is the fact that the larger paper is a morning edition, while the Sun-Commercial is an evening paper. "At this time there are no plans to change that," Morris remarked.
A former employee told E&P that the 20 let go at the Sun-Commercial included its sole full-time photographer, a copy editor and a layout editor/reporter, as well as the three advertising artists and one person each in accounting and classified advertising.
The same source - a former editorial staffer -- estimated that after Aug. 24, the newspaper will have four ad reps, an ad director, four circulation staffers and their manager, a sports editor and two sports writers, the managing editor, a copy/layout editor, and two reporters.
The former staffer also confirmed a report in the nearby Evansville Courier that former Sun-Commercial photographer Kevin Kilmer had been with the paper almost 12 years and former number-two editor Cyrstal Holmes had been there more than 17 years. Both are in their 40s, but the source said ages of those laid off ranged from late-20s to early 60s.
With Kilmer gone, said the laid-off newsroom employee, reporters are expected to snap photos with point-and-shoot cameras.
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