Los Angeles Times Cuts 300 More Jobs, 70 In Newsroom

 

LOS ANGELES, CA (January 30, 2009) – Hard times continue to take a toll on The Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper is folding the California section into the Times' first section, reconfiguring the newspaper into four sections, and cutting up to as many as 300 more jobs, including 70 in the newsroom, publisher Eddy Hartenstein announced.

The additional job cuts at the paper, owned by the bankrupt Tribune Co., amount to about 10 percent of the remaining Times employees.

Editor Russ Stanton - the paper's fourth editor in less than three years - followed the publisher's news with a memo to editorial that said the 70 newsroom job cuts will be "the final pieces of the newsroom reorganization that we began last year. This includes reclassifying jobs, reconfiguring desks, revamping our workflow and exploring new topic teams. The goal remains to operate a 24/7 newsgathering operation that delivers information to Southern California residents in any medium they consume it."

The three previous editors – James O'Shea, Dean Baquet, and John Carroll – left the Times after clashing with Tribune Co. managers while resisting the company's slashing cost-cutting measures.

According to the blog LA Observed, the newsroom will be left with about 565 employees after the cuts, less than half the people who worked there before real estate mogul Sam Zell bought Tribune Co. and, less than a year later, ran it into bankruptcy court.

 

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