The axe fell hard on the staff of the East Valley Tribune this morning as the newspaper laid off dozens of employees in preparation for Colorado publisher Randy Miller to take over later this month.
It’s unclear right now exactly how many people were cut throughout the building, but four sources familiar with today’s events said the knife went deep. The newsroom alone was reduced by more than half and the rest of the newspaper saw similar cutbacks.
Just 14 staffers will be left to run the Tribune’s news operations under the new owner, the sources said. The newsroom already underwent significant cuts in recent years and was down to fewer than 35 employees before today’s announcement.
Among those let go from the newsroom, the sources said, was the entire business desk, most of the copy desk and all but one photographer. [List posted below.]
The staffers who were kept on include longtime sports editor Bob Romantic, who will be elevated to the head of the newsroom. News editors CeCe Todd and John Yantis will also be kept on.
The cuts hardly come as a surprise. Staffers were told for months that Miller planned to let go of some employees when he bought the newspaper from Freedom Communications. That deal was given the green light by a federal judge on Tuesday.
But few expected the cuts to go so deep. When Miller was negotiating to buy the newspaper, he said publicly that he planned to keep a “significant” number of employees but never gave an exact count.
Only this morning did the extent of the layoffs become clear.
When they arrived at work today, employees were told they would be summoned via email to one of two meetings.
At the first meeting at 10 a.m., the sources said, dozens of employees were brought into a room on the ground floor where outgoing publisher Julie Moreno told them they were being let go. One source said the mood was exactly what you’d expect: grim. There was nervous laughter, a few tears and a lot of sad faces.
A half hour later, another group of staffers met with Miller in a room on the second floor, where he handed them letters with job offers under the new regime. There, the sources said, Miller also outlined his plan for the reorganized Tribune.
He told them the newspaper will have just one edition instead of its current four. That edition will carry the full East Valley Tribune moniker, which Freedom dropped from the print editions last year in favor of names like the Mesa Tribune and the Queen Creek Tribune.
The newspaper will also apparently push back into Tempe, a city it previously abandoned. One source said Miller plans to place about 30 newspaper racks throughout the city’s downtown area. He will also continue to distribute the newspaper for free throughout the East Valley.
Miller told his future staff that he hopes to make the newspaper financially viable again, which the current owners had failed to do despite multiple experiments and years of cutbacks. A recent court filing by Freedom Communications said the Tribune has recently been losing about $60,000 a week.
This is the second time in two years the Tribune has undergone a massive downsizing. In January 2009, the newspaper laid off about 140 people, which equaled about about 40 percent of its staff.
Later that year, the Tribune saw smaller rounds of layoffs, but many staffers, including the top editor, also quit on their own accord. Most of their positions were never filled again.
After today, the newspaper will operate a just a fraction of the size it maintained even just three or four years ago.
[Note: Heat City will post updates if they happen. For now, here are two lists. One is the list of newsroom staffers who were laid off. The other is those who were offered new jobs. The names have been confirmed through multiple sources. Comments? Corrections? Additions? Email me.]
Laid-off staffers from the newsroom
Ralph Freso, photographer
Darryl Webb, photo editor
Tom Boggan, photographer
CJ Coppola, office manager
Ari Cohn, news reporter
Hayley Ringle, news reporter
Gary Grado, news reporter
Blake Herzog, news reporter
David Woodfill, business reporter
Edward Gately, business reporter
Ed Taylor, business reporter
Les Willsey, sports reporter
Jess Harter, dining critic
Gary Smith, copy desk
Darren Barakat, copy desk
Mike Gossie, copy desk
Michael Welton, copy desk
Steve Burks, copy desk
Chris Adams, copy desk
Matt Swartz, copy desk
Newsroom staffers offered new jobs (titles unclear)
John Yantis
CeCe Todd
Mandy Zajac
Garin Groff
Mike Sakal
Tim Hacker
Amanda Rohrer
Michelle Reese
Charlie Hammer
Jayson Peters
Sonu Munshi
Mark Heller
Kyle Odegard
Bob Romantic
Amanda Keim (transferring to Ahwatukee Foothills News)
[Full disclosure: I am a former East Valley Tribune reporter and was among the 140 laid off in January 2009.]
Pingback: Tribune trims tremendous talent after paper’s sale « Lawn Cares()
Pingback: East Valley Tribune Down to Skeleton Crew | East Valley Blogger()
Pingback: Is there some other definition of ‘locally owned’ we don’t know about? [Updated] | Heat City()
Pingback: Blacklisted! New E.V. Tribune owner will talk to anyone except Heat City | Heat City()