Silicon Valley Insider editor, Nicholas Carlson, comments on the possibility of cuts at the New York Times [Thursday April 2].
“The New York Times says it will lay off 70 people from its newsroom if employees who belong to the Newspaper Guild don’t agree to take pay cuts.
“We expect the Guild, which met with Times management yesterday [Wednesday], to make all the necessary concessions.”
The Guardian News & Media (GNM) editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, has made his ten per cent pay cut public, following public comments by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) about Guardian executive bonus payments at a time when cuts are being made at regional newspapers within the Guardian Media Group (GMG).
Earlier this week the NUJ published a full page advert in the Guardian which said there were “devastating staff cuts to service the ongoing expansion of the Guardian – which is losing many millions but still paying executive bonuses.”
An article published today on MediaGuardian.co.uk reports that Rusbridger is not part of the GMG bonus scheme and had last year informed the Scott Trust, owners of GNM’s parent company GMG, of his plans to take a pay cut.
The article states that Carolyn McCall, chief executive of GMG, had told the company’s remuneration committee in January that she would not take a bonus for the 2008-9 year.
“”Ordinarily such information would only be made public when GMG’s annual report is published in the summer. However, as the group’s two most senior executives, and in light of recent comments by the NUJ, they felt it was appropriate to inform the [union] chapels,” a GMG spokesman said.”
As part of the pay freeze announcement in February GMG said that it would not pay financial performance bonuses for the financial year 2008-2009, ‘which form the larger part of overall bonuses,’ it continues.
“But its remuneration committee – which consists of independent directors and the chair of the Scott Trust – decided that bonuses based on the achievement of personal objectives could be paid.”
GMG has suspended its bonus scheme for this financial year, the article reports.
Joseph Tartakoff gives his insider’s view of the last few days at The Seattle-Post Intelligencer, before the title was taken online-only.
Even the Newseum, the news museum in Washington DC, isn’t safe from job losses. The organisations was forced to make 13 job cuts last week as a result of funding cuts, reports Mediabistro (via WTOP.com).
Paper Cuts, which maps US newspaper job losses, has gone past the 6,000 mark for 2009 (via Fading to Black).
Daily Mail & General Trust has announced possible job cuts of 1,000 at its regional publishing division Northcliffe Media.
The group posted a 24 per cent fall in advertising revenue across its national newspaper division and 37 per cent drop for regionals for Q1 2009.
The Manchester Evening News National Union of Journalists Chapel has passed the following motions at a mandatory meeting held today, and sent this email to GMG Regional chief executive, Mark Dodson.
To: Mark Dodson
Cc: Paul Horrocks; Jim Banham; Carolyn McCall; Liz Forgan
Subject: MEN NUJ chapel resolutions
Dear Mark,
At a very well attended, mandatory meeting earlier today, the MEN NUJ chapel unanimously passed the following resolutions:
“Journalists on the Guardian and Observer in London have backed colleagues on the local titles in their group who are fighting against massive job cuts and almost certain compulsory redundancies,” reports the National Union of Journalists.
“A joint meeting of NUJ members from the two national titles unanimously agreed a resolution that said: ‘When the chapels in Greater Manchester, Surrey and Berkshire decide on a course of action, we will support them,'” the release states.
“Most journalists in newspapers do everything BUT covering significant news. They spend their time doing celebrity, food, automobile, and entertainment stories. Look around any newsroom, or just the lists of assignments or beats, and you soon come to realize that 20 per cent or fewer of the journalists in newsrooms actually produce the kind of news that most people are concerned about losing,” writes Robert G. Picard.
As Gannett’s US and UK staff at Newsquest prepare to take a week’s unpaid leave, executives at the parent company have been asked to justify bonuses of nearly $2 million in a statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to the HuffPo report, CEO Craig Dubow will receive $875,000, while four other executives will pocket $300,000, $270,000, $245,000, and $260,000.