Big Cuts at Blethen
The Portland newspapers are about to get thinner – and pricier.
Al Diamon
According to the official announcement, as well as a posting on the Web site of the Portland Newspaper Guild and sources at Blethen who asked not to be identified because their continued employment could be threatened, here are the changes:
Twenty-seven positions will be eliminated, including 15 layoffs. No reporters will lose their jobs, but two newsroom clerks got the ax, along with several people in advertising and some staffers at Maine Today, the papers’ recently gutted on-line service.
The news hole, the space in the papers allocated to news, will be reduced by 5.5 pages weekdays and six pages on Sunday.
The papers will drop what publisher Charles Cochrane called “supplemental” wire services, by which he means the Washington Post/Los Angeles Times and Christian Science Monitor wires. That will leave the Portland papers with only the McClatchy and Associated Press services for world and national news.
The Press Herald will eliminate its I-Herald section on Mondays, the Lake Region Neighbors section and court listings. The Sunday Telegram will drop the Maine Life section and combine the Insight and business sections into one.
In April, the price of the Press Herald will increase from 60 cents to 75 cents.
According to a story posted on the Press Herald’s Web site, Cochrane blamed the cutbacks on the weak national economy and advertising sales that are running behind “the weak results posted last year.” He said there was little likelihood of improvement for the rest of the year.
C.J. Betit, administrative officer of Local 128 of the Guild, the union representing many Blethen employees in Portland, is quoted on the labor organization’s Web site as saying he’s “saddened” by the layoffs and “puzzled by the $132,000 in bonuses paid out to managers in January when our company is in an apparent state of flux.”
According to a source at the Press Herald, editor Jeannine Guttman plans to discuss the changes in her column in this week’s Telegram.
— Filed March 12, 2008
Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
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