The Trib Cuts Back

Hard times abound for many print media publication and The Chicago Tribune is the latest victim. Following up on Tribune Co. chairman and CEO Sam Zell's warning from earlier this year of more layoffs, the Trib announced today it plans to eliminate 80 positions in its newsroom. It's the fourth round of layoffs since 2005. At that time, the newsroom had 670 positions; this round of cuts will leave it around 500. Of the 80 positions being cut, roughly a dozen remain unfilled so the number of actual newsroom workers losing their jobs will be in the mid-50s. More jobs will be cut during this current round, but those are unknown at this time. In addition to the job cuts, the Trib will also reduce the pages it produces by 13 to 14 percent. A similar reduction in jobs and pages was announced last week at The Los Angeles Times, another Tribune Co. paper.