Another Chapter in this Media Miasma as New Haven Register Cuts 20 Jobs
When your stock is selling just north of a penny of a share, and has been delisted, it's understandable when you need to take drastic measures to survive.
But it's one thing to take drastic measures. It's another thing to simply slash and burn because you're in a state of panic and haven't bothered to come up with a coherent business plan. Such appears to be the case at Journal Register.
Its latest move today, according to the Associated Press: get rid of 20 jobs at its flagship -- such as it is -- property, The New Haven Register, including five in the newsroom. That represents about 7 percent of what's left of the newsroom staff.
True, that's wholly in line with what lots of other newspapers have been doing. But it indicates a Defcon 5 situation at Journal Register. Instead of shoring up its biggest papers, it's cutting from all corners.
And that can't be good, especially in light of news earlier this week that the company would close two smaller papers, the Herald in New Britain, and the Bristol Press unless -- in the unlikely event -- a buyer was found by January. A similar fate awaits 11 Connecticut weeklies put out by Journal Register.
The sad part is these moves, given the company's crushing debt load, resemble more of a Band-Aid and less a tourniquet.
But at this stage, Journal Register probably can't afford tourniquets.
1 comment:
Being an employee of The Journal Register Company is akin to being in the cast of the show "Survivor." Of course there are rituals, silly competitions, meaningless charms, pendants, and silly scrawled memos about wearing appropriate clothing as the heating and air conditioning systems will be non-functional until parts arrive from the Ubantu Heating & Cooling tribe.
The biggest difference I've witnessed? In "Survivor", at the Tribal Council meetings, your light gets extinguished. In JRC's Tribal Council, the whole island sinks into the ocean.
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