The Riverside Press-Enterprise will lose 120 employees through buyouts, the company announced today. The final day for everyone who agreed to take the package is September 12.
A.H. Belo Corporation, which owns the PE, said the buyouts here and elsewhere should save the company about $30 million a year. From the memo:
Overall, 413 employees will leave the company under the VSO [voluntary severance offer] – 270 at The Dallas Morning News, 23 at The Providence Journal, and 120 at The Press-Enterprise. The total cost of the VSO is approximately $11.2 million, the majority of which will be expensed in the third quarter.
In addition, an involuntary reduction in force will be completed by mid-to-late October to achieve the necessary remaining workforce reductions.
Read the full memo here.
*Updated: The PE reports that 30 more people will be shown the door as part of this "involuntary reduction in force."
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About 30 people have already taken staff buyouts: Environmental reporter Jennifer Bowles, Higher Education Elaine Regus, Crime GA Jose Arballo, Riverside GA Gregor McGavin, military reporter Joe Vargo, Corona GA Jerry Soifer, Corona reporter Paige Austin, Fast Food Dude Jeff Girod, Angels beat reporter Matt Hurst, Temecula editor Linda Woodbury Murrieta reporter Rocky Salmon, Temecula schools reporter Claudia Bustamante, Arts reporter Pat O'Brien, business reporter Joe Ascenzi, San Bernardino reporter Mary Bender, Desert reporter Steve Moore, photographers Amanda Lucidon, Ramon Owens, Steve Medd to name a few.
I never worked for the PE but know many of these people either personally or by reputation and understand them to be solid journalists.
Just to name a few, Jeff Girod made me laugh on days I didn't feel like laughing. Claudia Bustamante worked damn hard to get where she was and I admired her work ethic. Gregor and Rocky are both talented individuals whose work stood out. Jose Arballo and Joe Ascenzi are both talented veterans whose value will be painfully apparent to the PE managers after they are gone.
Morale must be in the toilet over there.
Morale has been in the toilet for years, since the paper became yet another corporate holding. Add to that a few yet very influencial middle managers who had the company by the short-n-curlies and have remained at their posts despite the droves of great journalists they chased away over the past four to five years ... these latest cuts are just the big, nasty low-advertising revenue pimple coming to a head.
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