AJC Reducing Staff By Nearly 200; 85 Newsroom Posts Included; Weekly Sections Eliminated
This story was written by David Kaplan.
While WSJ blamed expenses related to newsroom investments as the reason for laying off 50 staffers, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the latest to slash jobs for the usual reasons plaguing newspapers. The AJC reported that the Cox Newspapers' property is cutting 8 percent of its workforceabout 189 jobsin order to rein in costs. The reductions will come through the use of voluntary buyouts, layoffs and job eliminations.AJC executives said that rising fuel expenses have only added to the pressures brought on by a dismal ad market. The paper is also doing away with all its weekly editorial inserts next month to save on printing.
The dismissals will occur between August and October and will include the elimination of 85 newsroom posts58 of which are currently filledand 104 jobs on the ad sales side. The number of newsroom posts will fall to 350 after the cuts. On the bright side, the company claims that traffic to AJC.com has just surpassed 1 million pageviews a month.
By David Kaplan