TOWARD A TRIMMER TRIBUNE CO.

By: Staff Reports Chicago-Based Group Offers Voluntary Program To Cut Staff


Executives at Tribune Co. newspapers, responding to Chairman,
CEO, and President John Madigan's call for work-force reductions,
foresee various ways to achieve them in line with Madigan's
expressed hope that they be made via voluntary programs.

By the year's end, Tribune Publishing expects to have cut 10% of
its work force, or more than 2,000 jobs, since its parent bought
the Times Mirror Co. last year.

A companywide voluntary retirement plan has been offered to
certain employees who are at least 50 years old and who meet
specific other eligibility requirements. "This voluntary
retirement program will offer attractive enhanced pension
benefits to eligible employees," Madigan said in a statement to
employees.

The flagship Chicago Tribune expects minimal losses in
staff, with only a couple of those being newsroom employees who
have been offered early-retirement packages. Over the past
decade, the Tribune staff has shrunk about 10%, to about
3,000.

Across the newspaper, there will be "a couple of dozen" cuts,
said Kelly Shannon, the Tribune's director of
communications. "There are no wholesale hits in any particular
area or any particular department."

Los Angeles Times Deputy Managing Editor Leo Wolinsky said
any editorial department cuts will be voluntary. Some groups now
understaffed, such as copy editors and news editors, will be
exempt from any offer, he added.

"We're doing some reorganizing here, but we're not using any
layoffs to do that," noted Wolinsky. "We're moving people around
and things of that nature, but we're not laying anybody off."

Through the voluntary retirement offer, the paper is trying to
eliminate 30 editorial positions. It has 1,100 full-time
employees, although many of these would not be eligible for the
offer.

At Newsday in Melville, N.Y., Publisher Ray Jansen said
last week: "Not many people have stepped forward for the buyout.
But most of it [the staff cuts] can be done through attrition and
outsourcing. There is always a certain amount of turnover, so
this is not a real serious setback."

The Hartford (Conn.) Courant plans to eliminate 30
jobs, according to executives. The paper has offered Tribune's
early-retirement package to 66 employees, expecting at least one
out of three to accept the offer.

At The Sun in Baltimore, Publisher Michael Waller said he
expects to weather the financial storm without layoffs. Waller
stressed that the paper was keeping cuts away from editorial and
sales staff as much as possible. "We're trying to figure out ways
to do it that don't do long-term damage," he said. For instance,
he noted, the paper was not reducing its Washington office or
foreign bureaus. Waller said the reductions would leave The
Sun's editorial staff at roughly the same level as 1997, when
he came to the paper. "That's a hell of a lot better than their
colleagues are faring in other media companies," he said.

In Newport News, Va., managers at the Daily Press
announced a voluntary early-retirement program for some workers
over 50 years of age who had been with the paper for at least
five years.

Rondra J. Matthews, Daily Press publisher, told staff
reporter Peter Dujardin that the paper planned to reduce its work
force 3% to 4%, which would mean 15 to 20 of its 500 employees.

One of those taking the offer is Editor and Vice President Will
Corbin, 51, who joined the newspaper in 1978. Corbin will be
joining his wife, Linda, for a year in rural Austria where she
has a teaching fellowship. "The timing works out great," said
Corbin. "Right now, I plan to explore. And when I get back - no
earthly idea."

Corbin said the paper's newsroom with about 150 jobs normally
carries about six vacancies, a figure that has increased to
roughly a dozen because it is filling jobs sparingly. Corbin will
be succeeded as the paper's top editor by Ernie Gates, vice
president for strategic planning.

Staff reductions were expected to be minimal at two Tribune
newspapers in Florida.
At the Fort Lauderdale-based South Florida Sun-Sentinel,
spokesman Kevin Courtney said voluntary retirement would be
offered to less than 1% of a work force of about 1,950 people.
"The impact could be characterized as very limited," Courtney
said.

The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel quoted its spokeswoman
Ashley Allen as saying the paper planned no staff cuts beyond
voluntary-retirement offers to less than 1% of 1,500 employees.
"We have been very conscientious with respect to reducing
expenses," Allen said.

Elsewhere at the parent company, which had revenue of about $6
billion last year, Tribune Media Services, whose functions
include newspaper syndication, will offer voluntary retirement to
only a "handful" of its 549 employees worldwide. "Other than the
retirements, we have no current plans to reduce staff," said TMS
Director of Marketing Stephen Tippie. Staffing already was tightened
last fall, when TMS announced it would lay off 34 Los Angeles
Times Syndicate staffers as it merged with LATS.



Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.