Jump or get pushed: MaineToday Media – publisher of the Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram, Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal – is facing another round of employee layoffs in March. The company announced the impending cuts on February 22 in a memo to staff from editor/publisher Richard Connor.

Connor has repeatedly claimed the company he bought last June is profitable. The layoff memo gives only a limited explanation as to why the cuts are necessary.

“Business needs in our company are such that we must eliminate certain positions and re-organize,” the memo reads.

The exact jobs to be eliminated will be announced in mid-March. Employees were told they had until March 5 to volunteer to be terminated, but no incentives were offered to those who accept that offer. Under union contracts, most workers would be entitled to two weeks pay for every year they’ve worked at the newspapers, whether they agree to leave or are forced out.

Members of the Portland Newspaper Guild, the largest union at MTM, are meeting today to discuss the layoffs.

One company insider said the motivation for the staff reduction may not have much to do with the bottom line, but rather with eliminating workers who don’t fit in with the new management.

“Everything we’ve been hearing is the financials are doing well,” the insider said, adding that it seemed unlikely the layoff threat was aimed at reporters and editors.

“I can’t see how they’ll hit the newsroom, because it’s down to nothing,” the source said.

Jump to new beats: Along with the announcement of staff reductions, many Press Herald reporters got new assignments on February 22. Here are some of the major changes:

John Richardson will be shifted from covering the environment to concentrate on health care and social services. Richardson will be replaced on the enviro-beat by Beth Quimby, who had been assigned to the business desk. Matt Wickenheiser, who had been reporting on Portland business and neighborhood issues, will keep those beats, but add the governor’s race and the closing of Brunswick Naval Air Station. Justin Ellis, Melanie Creamer, and Ann Kim will get additional duty covering municipal governments in the suburbs of Portland.

“They’re taking the feature people, the outdoors people off the towns, because that wasn’t working,” said a source at the paper. “They were just ignoring their towns. These changes are supposed to give more town coverage.”

The Press Herald has fourteen reporters, not counting columnist Bill Nemitz, who seems to be on indefinite assignment in Florida.

Still swinging: Pseudonymous blogger Thomas Cushing Munjoy reported on February 22 that the Press Herald had scrapped its best blog, sports writer Kevin Thomas’ “Clearing the Bases,” which covers the Portland Sea Dogs and Boston Red Sox.

Not so. In an e-mail, Thomas said he’s “slowly getting up to speed on the new website,” but expected to return as early as February 23. As the truncated posting on that date shows, he still has some ground – not to mention a bodily part – to cover.

Mass media: The North East Radio Watch Web site is reporting that groups affiliated with the Knights of Columbus won out over the competition for two radio licenses in Maine that were recently awarded by the Federal Communications Commission.

The FM stations will be located near Presque Isle and Sanford.

Also winning a permit for a station near Houlton was the Native American Radio Project.

Weekly swap: In his opinion column, Maine Press Association executive director Mike Lange offers up an idea so simple, it’s difficult to believe that everybody isn’t already using it. Lange suggests weekly papers emulate the state’s dailies and start swapping stories, at least on a limited basis.

He uses the state basketball tourneys as examples of events that are difficult to cover for small weeklies far from the action, but points out that other weeklies closer to the courts might be willing to trade stories and photos in return for similar help when their high school teams travel to distant contests in the spring or fall.

“Once you negotiate a working relationship with that paper – which could be on the other end of the state – you’ve expanded your coverage at virtually no cost,” Lange writes.

Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.

The views expressed on this Web site are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Down East Enterprise or its employees.