'Sun' Down: Baltimore Paper Announces 75 Job Cuts

By: Joe Strupp Denise Palmer, publisher and CEO of the troubled The Sun in Baltimore, announced to staff today the need to cut 75 cuts, hopefully through buyouts but via layoffs if necessary.

Palmer noted belt-tightening throughout the Tribune Co., which has been hit by steep circulation cuts.

"Through this voluntary program, we hope to achieve employee reductions of approximately 75 people across the company to help avoid layoffs," she wrote in a memo. "The buyout terms are similar to past offers -- details will be included in packages handed to eligible employees. ...

"We are committed to streamlining our organization in a way that minimizes the impact to our readers and advertisers," Palmer stated. "We recognize that we will need to operate differently to accommodate reduced staffing. The management team is working diligently on this and we'll communicate our plans within the next week."

Between 12 and 15 newsroom jobs are expected to be cut as part of a buyout offer, a Sun spokeswoman told E&P.

Linda Geeson, the Sun's director of marketing and communications, offered no details on the buyout offer, which she said will be the 12th such offer in the past eight years. The last was in June 2004, resulting in no layoffs.

"Until people have it in their hands, we would rather not say what the specifics are," Geeson said, noting that the buyout packets will be distributed by Nov. 15. "In the newsroom it will by and large not be reporters." When asked which editorial positions could be cut, she said, "you've got copy editors, you've got librarians, photographers, and a lot of support people."

Michael Hill, the Sun's guild unit chair, said the buyout is expected to offer one week's pay for every six months of employment, up to a maximum of one year's salary. He also said health benefits would be provided for a minimum of six months and a maximum of one year.

"We haven't come to a final agreement [with management]," Hill said. "We will meet again Monday."

Editor Tim Franklin, who joined the paper in January 2004, did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Palmer, publisher since 2002, referred calls to Geeson.

The Sun has contracts with six unions, none of which are currently in bargaining negotiations talks, Geeson said. The largest is the Washington Baltimore Newspaper Guild, which remains in the midst of a four-year agreement set to expire in June 2007. That contract came about following a bitter negotiation period in 2003 that ended with a strike threat by workers and management planning to use replacement workers. No strike occurred, but the dispute left a lingering bitterness for many guild employees.

"I didn't expect it," Larry Carson, a reporter in the paper's Howard County bureau and a guild official, said about the buyout announcement today. "It just came up recently and we have to get the details. It is not encouraging."

Hill called the buyout traumatic "when you are dealing with a place that makes as much money as this place does." He also said the loss of even support staff in the newsroom "would obviously affect how work is done."

The Sun is the latest in a string of major dailies seeking scores of job cuts in recent weeks. The list includes The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, San Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and San Jose Mercury News. Each of those papers has either launched or completed a severe buyout program in the past few months.

The Hartford Courant, owned by The Tribune Company, which also owns the Sun, announced just last month that it was cutting 29 jobs, 15 that were vacant through attrition.

Geeson said the Sun also plans other cost-cutting measures beyond job reductions. "There will be some operational adjustments in how we distribute the paper," she told E&P. "It will not be visible to readers."

Here is Palmer's memo to staff, in part:

*
The Sun, like most traditional media businesses, is in the midst of a dramatic, transformational change. New technologies, an explosion of choices for news consumers, and changing lifestyles have fundamentally altered the media landscape. We need to rise to these challenges so that we can better serve our readers, advertisers and our communities.

Here are some of the issues we face:

* Fragmentation is dividing the news audience, leading to declines in all major media -- newspapers, television and radio.

* Many of our largest advertisers are facing their own financial pressures and some are consolidating, resulting in slow revenue growth.

* Costs, particularly newsprint, energy and employee benefits, are continuing to escalate....

Now, we need to stay focused on accelerating growth across all of our many businesses -- The Sun, baltimoresun.com, Patuxent, Homestead and our many niche products. And, we need to match our resources to what customers value and what will help us grow in the future.

As part of this transformation, we, as well as other Tribune papers, must reduce costs so that we can remain strong over the long haul and adapt to these new market forces.

This is a difficult transition, but a necessary one for our future. As part of this transition, we are today announcing a voluntary employee buyout.

We anticipate notifying eligible employees in all departments by Tuesday, November 15th. In the case of Guild-represented employees, talks about the buyout are currently underway with the union.

Through this voluntary program, we hope to achieve employee reductions of approximately 75 people across the company to help avoid layoffs. The buyout terms are similar to past offers -- details will be included in packages handed to eligible employees....

We are committed to streamlining our organization in a way that minimizes the impact to our readers and advertisers. We recognize that we will need to operate differently to accommodate reduced staffing. The management team is working diligently on this and we'll communicate our plans within the next week....

I want to thank you for the great contributions you've made, and encourage you to stay focused on the important roles you play at this treasured and important institution. We've survived many changes over our 168-year history, and I know that working together as a team will allow us to remain strong and successful.