Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

For 2008, revenues for publicly reporting newspaper companies were down an average of 12.4 percent, Morton said.

On Sunday, the debt-burdened company that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of federal bankruptcy law.

On Tuesday, the Hearst Corp. said it would sell or close its San Francisco Chronicle newspaper if the company is unable to obtain sharp expense reductions over the next few months.

On Wednesday, the Hartford Courant announced that it would eliminate 100 jobs, mainly through layoffs.

At the Journal, about 100 positions will have been eliminated after the reduction in force, Sutton said.

The figure includes 74 people to be laid off, as well as positions that have not been filled, and a reduction in the number of shifts for people who insert advertising supplements into the newspaper, he said.

The across-the-board layoffs include union and non-union workers, managers and others -- including personnel in the company's press room, advertising and news departments. "Almost every department will be impacted," he said.

Those who lose their jobs are eligible for up to 10 weeks' severance.

The layoffs are the result of a drop in advertising revenue amid a global recession, Sutton said.

"Given the precipitous downturn in advertising revenue and the deepening recession, it's necessary for us to reduce our cost base wherever possible without impacting the quality of the product," Sutton said in an interview.

"We undertook numerous cost reductions, process improvements, elimination of expenses, and incremental revenue opportunities before this reduction in force," he said. "We were careful to eliminate every expense we could before we had to impact staffing."

Sutton added, "It's always difficult to reduce your staffing levels through [layoffs], but it's necessary to ensure the future of the franchise. We remain committed to our mission of being the premier news and information provider for the state of Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts."

Despite the layoffs, "The readers will see no reduction in the depth or the quality of our reporting," he said.

John G. Hill, president of the Providence Newspaper Guild, a union that represents about 300 advertising, news and editorial employees at the Journal Co., said the layoffs were not unexpected.

"This isn't anything that isn't happening all over the country . . . but it becomes personal when it happens here," Hill said.

The reduction in force will leave the Journal Co. with a staff of 562, including 512 full-time workers and 50 part-time workers, Sutton said.

The current round of layoffs represents the fourth reduction in the Journal Co.'s workforce in the last six months or so.

In September, 22 Journal Co. employees took advantage of a voluntary buyout offer.

In October, 31 workers were laid off.

In December, the company laid off 20 workers, most of them part-timers, plus two supervisors involved in circulation customer service, Sutton said. (That function has been outsourced to a company in New Hampshire, he said.)

Linda Lotridge Levin, professor and chair of the University of Rhode Island's Journalism Department, said the newspaper industry's main problem involves advertising, its chief source of revenue.

"For years and years, you had three places to advertise: newspapers, TV stations and radio stations," she said.

Now, with the popularity of the Internet, there are "millions of places" to advertise or otherwise promote a product or service -- including places that do not charge, such as social networking sites, she said.

As a result, there are fewer advertising dollars being spent for traditional media such as newspapers, she said.

During an interview with Sutton, the following points emerged:

* In July, A.H. Belo Corp. disclosed plans to sell some real estate in each of its three principal markets. The Journal Co.'s real estate holdings in Providence, with the exception of its printing facility, continue to be marketed, Sutton said.

"There are some interested parties, but there is nothing close to a sale at this point in time on any of them," he said.

* In April, the company will reduce the width of its newspaper by one inch, but there will be no less content, Sutton said. The reduction will bring the Journal newspaper in line with the industry standard, he said.

* The Journal "will be working on a redesign of the printed product" which readers and advertisers will see later this year, Sutton said. The redesign does not involve a reduction in content, he said.

* The Journal Co. has instituted a number of cost-cutting measures recently, including a reduction in travel expenses, and a printing-press reconfiguration to save on ink and paper expenses, Sutton said.

* The Journal Co. has also begun delivering newspapers that are published in other markets -- including national newspapers -- in an attempt to supplement traditional streams of revenue from the company's advertising, circulation and Web sites, Sutton said.

In addition to the Providence Journal, Dallas Morning News, and Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise, A.H. Belo Corp. (AHC:NYSE) owns the Denton (Texas) Record-Chronicle and the newspapers' Web sites, including projo.com.