The largest newspaper chain in the U.S. cut more employees Friday. Poynter reported that the announcement from Gannett came one week after the company said it suffered a revenue loss for the second quarter.
Poynter said The NewsGuild, which represents more than 1,500 Gannett journalists across roughly 50 newsrooms, had tracked 35 layoffs across 20 newsrooms by Friday afternoon. Two of them were from unionized papers.
According to Poynter, the union has called on Gannett to reduce executive pay and “frivolous spending” instead of cutting jobs.
We’ve been told some of the journalists losing jobs worked at the Burlington Hawk Eye, the Galesburg Register Mail, and other papers in this region.
Shop Talk is a weekly panel discussion about journalism issues. This week’s program featured Will Buss, who teaches in the Department of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Illinois University and advises the student editors at the Western Courier, the students at student radio station The Dog, and the WIU chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists; Rajvee Subramanian, a former teacher in the Department of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Illinois University; and TSPR News Director Rich Egger.
