SPECIAL REPORT: Editors/Reporters Respond to Tribune Cuts

By: Joe Strupp (From E&P's September print issue) Eastern Pennsylvania steel country has little in common with Florida's sunshine and tourists. But in the world of Tribune Co., where job cuts and redesigns are suddenly all the rage, newspapers in these two regions are finding more in common with each passing day ? and much of it foreboding.

While the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune have earned the headlines in the Tribune shakeup, it's the company's other dailies, like The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., and Florida's Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, that are feeling some of the most significant effects.

Those smaller papers offer a snapshot of the way the Tribune overhaul is reshaping its local products, and many employees there say that staff cuts and the way they're being handled suggest none of the papers will ever be the same again. "This will materially change the paper," says Michele Salcedo, a nine-year Sun-Sentinel staffer and recent race and demographics editor who lost her job in July. "It has already changed dramatically. The culture in which [these] decisions have been made has not been good."

And while Allentown would never be mistaken for Orlando, the impact of Tribune's recent money woes on each paper are nearly identical. In July, all three papers cut about 20% of their staff through an unusual and, for some, confusing severance program that mixed voluntary and involuntary job losses with a fairly generous package of two weeks' pay for each year of employment.

The severance ? none of the papers is using the term "buyout" ? was also issued through each employee's retirement fund, sparking an early-withdrawal penalty for some who opted to take the cash now. Although Tribune contends it is covering the cost of such penalties (see sidebar, p. 44), many staffers find this payout method at the very least odd, and at the most, a hassle.

"I don't think anyone thought it would come so quickly, and so hard," says Linda Kleindienst, the Sun-Sentinel's Tallahassee bureau chief who left in July. "This is unprecedented. It is a dramatic change."

The cutbacks were also executed over a month-long period, taking up most of July before each worker knew for sure if he or she was out of a job ? even those who decided to leave. "It has been pretty bleak for a couple of months at least," says Eric Chiles, a 31-year Allentown staffer who was forced out. "We got memos for a month or so that things would be happening in July. Then they happened."

To add further upheaval, all three dailies launched redesigns as the cuts took effect. At least in part, one could interpret this move as cutting off one's arm and then buying a new suit to help disguise it. But while the Sentinel promoted its redesign with a major Web site ad that boasted the easier navigation and flashy graphics, the Morning Call barely acknowledged its changes ? which included fewer editorials each week and increased interactive options, such as expanded reader comment sections and more letters to the editor. (Following several requests from E&P, Publisher Timothy Kennedy and Editor Ardith Hilliard declined comment through a spokeswoman.)

"It is a kind of weird time for all of us," says John L. Micek of the Morning Call's capitol bureau. "The ground is changing constantly under our feet here."

View from the top
Between them, Charlotte Hall and Earl Maucker have more than 50 years of combined newspapering experience. But both editors, who run the Sentinel and Sun-Sentinel, respectively, admit the changes in the past few months exceed any they have seen in their long careers. "It is the most profound change in my lifetime in journalism," Hall, the Sentinel's newsroom boss since 2004, says of the current newspaper climate. "It is a very hard time for staff, we try to be as fair as we can and move as quickly as we can."

Maucker, a Sun-Sentinel employee since 1980 ? including 14 years as editor ? agrees: "Nobody wants to go through this, it is a harsh reality in our business."

Like all Tribune properties, these papers are responding to the financial fallout from Sam Zell buying the company in 2007 and incurring billions in debt that must be paid off. By spring, the reality was clear that each of these three dailies would have to cut and redesign ? both to reduce pages and lure new readers. The 20% newsroom reduction was not announced until June at each paper. Editors claim that figure was not a mandate from Tribune headquarters.

"Believe me, no one here wants to deny our readers important content," Maucker wrote in a June 22 column that first signaled to readers the pending cuts. "But, the reality is we are a business ? just like any other in South Florida that is suffering in a declining economy ? and must take action to reduce costs."

By June, all three papers told staffers that cuts were coming and they could volunteer to depart if they wanted, and they would receive the same two weeks' pay for each year of service as those who would be downsized. "The purpose was to minimize the need to lay off, if there were good volunteers there," says Maucker, noting that the Sentinel remained selective about which staffers it allowed to leave ? and not all the volunteers were accommodated: "If they were jobs that were critical, skill levels we needed, we would not consider them."

Asked why the papers structured the job cuts this way, with voluntary and involuntary cuts together, officials at those properties were reluctant to explain further, other than to say it was done to get cuts completed quickly and fairly. "It was just the process we went though," says Maucker. Often managers ask for buyouts, make a tally, and only then go to layoffs.

A traditional buyout usually requires the papers to take, by seniority, applicants who want to leave; a severance package, whether granted for a voluntary or involuntary exit, does not. "A program like this offers more flexibility for employees and managers," says Hall.

Tribune Senior Vice President/Corporate Relations Gary Weitman explains that the term "buyout" was not used because the payments came through the company's pension plan, but he won't elaborate. "Because of the way the staff reductions and severance packages are being structured, they are payments being made to their retirement accounts," he says. "Beyond that, I am not going to get into the legal aspects."

Concrete numbers on the staff eliminations were unclear until the final cuts were made in late July at each paper. Only then, employees say, were they told who would be let go and who could leave on their own. Maucker admits the process was unusual, but says his paper sought to avoid as many layoffs as possible.

"There were a lot of people who knew they weren't safe, and other people who were told they were wanted to stay," says Joe Demma, a Sun-Sentinel investigative editor who was one of the casualties. "The morale was the lowest I have ever seen at any newspaper anywhere, since the days of New York Newsday closing [in 1995]."

Demma says he was told his job was gone July 18, the day before he would leave on a two-week vacation. "It sort of changed my plans, I had to regroup," says the 65-year-old father of five. "It probably wasn't a surprise. It is hard to tell the way the paper is going. We are a business, and we have to [help] the paper to survive."

Orlando Sentinel business reporter Harry Wessel, a 34-year veteran, agrees: "They are trying to be humane, but nobody is going to be happy about this."

Do I still have a job?
In the final weeks of July, the exact numbers of who had taken a buyout and who had been laid off began to trickle out. The Orlando Sentinel and Sun-Sentinel did not run stories about the cuts until they were completed ? and reported by E&P. The Morning Call, meanwhile, posted a report July 21 that it was closing its bureaus in Lehighton and Quakertown ? and only mentioned its redesign briefly in one sentence.

"The volume of change is nothing that we have seen before," notes Allentown columnist Bill White, who kept his job but laments the loss of others. "It is an extended torture because we had heard cuts were coming, but it was just in the last week [of July] what the numbers were."

Several Morning Call staffers were actually called at home with news of their status. "I'm glad they called, I was happy to still [be employed]," says Steve Esack, a five-year reporter who was told he would be moved to a new office after his bureau closes. "I think they did an admirable job."

The two weeks' pay for each year of service is similar to recent packages for voluntary retirees at many papers, such as The Cincinnati Enquirer and San Francisco Chronicle. Others, such as those at The Washington Post, were able to receive up to two years' salary if they had a lengthy tenure at the paper.

Tammy Lytle, an Orlando Sentinel Washington bureau chief for seven years and an 11-year employee who covered the 2004 race for president, was laid off in mid-July after being allowed to put in a three-day week for several years. She says that after these cuts, the paper will now have one D.C. reporter ? in an election year, and with a new president coming to town soon.

"It's a shame, because I think Washington news is important to Orlando," she adds. As for the cuts being the result of an industrywide downturn and a Tribune-wide cutback, she reflects, "You lose a job, you lose a job. It doesn't matter so much who pulled the trigger."

Hall in Orlando contends that her company is not alone in the cost-cutting realm these days. "I'm not convinced that Tribune is cutting so much more than everyone else. Different people are doing it at different times," she says. But being direct with staffers and readers, and making sure all decisions are made before anything is announced, becomes critical. "I don't think you can sugarcoat this," she adds. "It is very, very stressful." She points out that at least two-thirds of the 44 newsroom staffers who left her paper did so by choice: "I was very heartened by that, because the last thing you want to do is terminate people."

Best (new) face forward
On top of the stress and uncertainty for staffers who would soon either lose their jobs or manage to keep them, all three papers decided to forge ahead with redesigns. The Orlando Sentinel launched its new look on June 22, boasting more color and graphics ? and did it with less than four months of planning (E&P, August 2008). Allentown followed next, putting its new face forward about a month later. Fort Lauderdale debuted on Aug. 17.

"Our redesign is in no way connected to staff reductions. We are handling them separately," claims Maucker, who boasts that the new look is "bold, dramatic and more use of color, graphics and design. The important thing is to put everything into context. We are being encouraged to reinvent the newspaper." Maucker says the paper will maintain the same size newshole, although he had previously cut three pages of daily stock listings down to a half-page, and moved the Monday and Tuesday feature items to the back of the business section.

"We have always had a much larger news section than most papers," Maucker says. "It is now about navigation. We will give information for the pieces on the front, but add more information inside."

In Allentown, the redesign was unveiled on July 28, but only Opinion Pages Editor/ Vice President Glenn Kranzley would discuss the changes ? revealing that it included the cutting of his only full-time editorial writer and the elimination of one of two daily opinion pages. That change means the paper will run editorials only three days a week, giving up space on other days to reader comments and letters.

"There are not enough people to do it," he says, noting he is now the only full-time editorial writer, working with a part-time assistant. "I have some freelance help, but I do the writing, do the letters, choose and edit Op-Eds, and plan coordinating artwork."

In each newspaper's case, it is clear the future will include fewer staffers, more Web content, and a print approach that has to serve loyal older readers and attract younger new ones. Is that even possible?

Maucker says yes: "The redesign will enhance our brand and give a lot more appeal to the reader in a hurry and the reader who wants in-depth." He also emphasizes the Sun-Sentinel's recent agreement with local Tribune television station WSFL-TV to broadcast an entire morning news show from the newsroom beginning in January. "There will be a sizeable portion of the newsroom for production and staffing," he says. "We have a lot of things that are going to be going on that are exciting."

Adds Hall: "Change has just accelerated in this business and it has been exacerbated because of the economy." But she contends such challenges give newsrooms more incentive to cover their beats and break stories: "Nothing lights up the staff like good journalism."