Turning ships into boats

Having just cut 57 positions, the Gannett-owned Journal News in Westchester, New York, announced that it will eliminate all 288 of the remaining news and advertising jobs and then hire about three-quarters of them back.

From the New York Times:

After the redefined jobs are filled, there will be 20 fewer positions in advertising and 50 fewer positions in news, reducing the newsroom staff (which includes Web employees) by more than a quarter. ...

A reporter who has been at the paper for more than 15 years said that matching old jobs to new was confusing. “For example, there are no photo jobs listed, but ‘visual specialists,’ ” the reporter said, while the closest jobs to traditional print reporting seemed to be “topics beat reporter” and “local beat reporter.”

“It seemed obvious that a lot of the local communities we cover will get shorted on coverage, mainly because there’s not enough people,” said the reporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns over the job.

Former Journal News employees will begin interviewing to become new Journal News employees next week.