The East Valley Tribune announced today it has laid off 13 more workers as part of another round of cuts that includes dropping a suburban edition and cutting back its number of days in print to just three.
The newest hit comes after two rounds of cuts at the Mesa-based news outlet already this year. In the first in January, the paper laid off about about 140 employees — roughly half its staff — as well as ended home delivery and reduced the number of days in print from seven to four. The paper also eliminated its coverage of Scottsdale and Tempe. Then last month, the newspaper announced the first cuts weren’t enough. The remaining employees were forced to take a week off without pay by the end of June.
Now, in a statement posted on the newspaper’s website, the Tribune announced it will no longer print on Saturdays, leaving readers with print editions on just Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The Freedom Communications-owned paper announced it is also shutting down its Ocotillo edition, a weekly suburban spin-off of the newspaper.
Because of the physical changes, publisher Julie Moreno told employees that 13 people would also be laid off, mostly from “production-related” departments, according to the Trib’s website. In the published statement, Moreno referred to the newest cuts as “adjustments.” “Now that we have some experience with our new model, we have begun the process of looking at what is working well, and what elements should be adjusted,” Moreno said.
A formerly strong newspaper in the suburbs of Phoenix, the Tribune averaged about 100,000 subscribers as recently as 2004. But according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the newspaper suffered ground losses in recent years, leaving it with just 54,000 subscribers by last September, just three months before it ended home delivery.
Last month, the newspaper’s parent company, Freedom, was ranked by Moody’s Investment Services, as one of the 238 companies most likely to default on its loans.
Full disclosure: I am a former staff reporter for the Tribune, and was among those laid off in January.