BOTTOM LINE: While some journalists are saying the Kansas City Star has effectively "Separated the wheat from the chaff, and kept the chaff," at least decision makers there were wise enough to keep journalist Dan Margolies. 09-18-2008
65 employees leaving The Star By DAN MARGOLIES The Kansas City Star Sixty-five employees of The Kansas City Star have accepted voluntary buyouts or been laid off in the second round of personnel cuts at the newspaper since June. The cuts come as The McClatchy Co., the Star�s parent, announced about 1,150 job cuts throughout the chain, or 10 percent of the company�s work force, citing a �difficult advertising downturn.� McClatchy said the job cuts and other initiatives would save $100 million over the next year, excluding severance costs of about $20 million. In a memo to employees, Star publisher Mark Zieman said the cuts at the newspaper were split nearly evenly between the voluntary buyouts and involuntary layoffs, most of which occurred Wednesday. He said that several additional positions would be eliminated through attrition. �This latest round of cuts has been especially disappointing because we all believed the steps we took two months ago would be sufficient to see us through the sharp revenue declines that have beset our industry during this current recession,� Zieman wrote. �Instead, we�ve discovered that more is required to protect the financial health of our company, and to ensure that we can successfully restructure and adjust to this new business model.� In June, The Star cut 120 jobs, or about 10 percent of its work force, as part of McClatchy�s elimination of 1,400 positions companywide. McClatchy, based in Sacramento, Calif., also plans to outsource some financial functions to Infosys Technologies, based in India. The Star began outsourcing some advertising production work to the company earlier this year, and Zieman said some accounting functions may be outsourced as well. He said 10 or fewer people would be affected.
Copyright 2010 Bottom Line Communications. BLC is a Media News Web site that analyzes media and marketing issues. Please give credit or link to http://www.bottomlinecom.com when using any materials. Click on the FEEDBACK tab to send any media tips/comments/thoughts/ to us. We honor all off-the-record requests and will correct/clarify any information found not to be 100% accurate.
