New York Times Says 100 Newsroom Jobs -- About 7% -- To Go This Year

Philip Stone February 15, 2008

Not even the New York Times is safe from newsroom cutbacks, and Editor Bill Keller told staff Thursday that 100 newsroom personnel will lose their jobs this year. There will be buyouts, some positions won’t be filled, but if that is not enough then there will be layoffs, he said.

The Times claims it has by far, the largest newspaper newsroom in the US with 1,332 employees and that no other American newspaper has more than 900. Numbers have grown at the Times over the years because of Internet activities.

The company says it is doing better with revenues than the industry as a whole, but that still means revenues are down, just not as badly as elsewhere. US newspaper ad revenue averaged a 7% decline last year, but for The Times it was 4.7%.  Ad sales at the Times fell 12% in December with many other newspaper companies also reporting a poor December and an even worse January.

Richard Pérez-Peña, the newspaper’s media correspondent, quotes Keller telling staff, “Our challenge will be to set our priorities in such a way that we do less in the areas that damage our competitiveness least.” In other words, there will be some damage.

The New York Observer reported that staff remained basically silent as Keller, in his morning meeting, gave out the bad news and the only one to pepper the editor with questions was Pérez-Peña. The Observer quoted one staff member at the meeting, “He asked for questions and no one lined up. It was like a bunch of scared cats. It’s like no one wanted to confront what he said.”

By the afternoon meeting staff knew what was going on and they did ask questions. The mood was described as subdued as Keller was asked how much longer the Times would continue to publish a print edition since more and more efforts were being put into digital operations. He said giving up print was not “imminent” (publisher Arthur Sulzberger upset staff last year when he intimated it could happen within five years).

Keller said "most" of the 100 eliminated jobs will be journalists, rather than art and photo editors, receptionists or others whose duties place them in the newsroom.

There’s no good time for job cuts, but these cuts come at a particularly bad time as Rupert Murdoch heavily invests in the editorial product at the Wall Street Journal and he is not shy in saying his target is to overtake the Times as America’s newspaper of record.

The New York Times Company is under pressure from two hedge funds that have bought up 9.96% of the company’s shares and wants to name it owns slate of four independent directors to the board. The hedge funds want the board to endorse asset sales with more money going into digital products. In response, with two board members retiring this year, the company has recommended two individuals not on the hedge find slate, but one, Dawn Lepore, is the chief executive and chairwoman of drugstore.com, and she also serves on the board of eBay Inc. so the idea is to show that someone with good experience in the digital world is being recommended.

Wall Street reacted as one might expect. Bad news for employees is good news for the money people, and the shares had a big day, closing up 4.78% in an overall market that closed down 1.4%.