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May 8, 2007 8:19 am US/Central
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Star Tribune To Cut 145 Positions, 50 In Newsroom
Minneapolis (WCCO) ―
Facing revenue and circulation declines, the Star Tribune said Monday it would eliminate 145 positions, or about 7 percent of its work force.
The cuts will include about 50 positions in the newsroom, the paper said, and a voluntary buyout program has been proposed to the Newspaper Guild, which represents newsroom workers.
One of the paper's best known writers, Nick Coleman, may be reassigned.
"I am supposed to be considering whether I want to do something else and I don't," said Coleman.
Gossip columnist C.J. may also lose her column.
"They'll make a decision whether I'm valuable in a couple of weeks," she told WCCO-TV.
James Lileks' column is already history.
"We'll see what other opportunities open up inside the paper," he said.
Columnists Doug Grow and Katherine Kersten could also be reassigned.
With this latest round of cuts, nearly 20 percent of newsroom jobs are being phased out this year. For some quality is the casualty.
"Newspapers rely on convincing their readers that they are deeply connected and care about their community every time you take people out of the newsroom especially familiar faces you lost some of that," said Coleman.
Professor John Fossum, of the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, said the Star Tribune is trying to cut costs as it continues to hemorrhage advertisers and young readers to the Internet.
"Newspapers as a medium are going to go down in importance as a medium over the future," said Fossum.
However, employees like Coleman and others who wouldn't talk on camera believe management is clinging to profit margins of an earlier era at the expense of an institution that has shaped a community for generations.
The paper said about two-thirds of the jobs to be eliminated would come through voluntary buyouts but that it would use layoffs if too few workers leave on their own. The paper said it would also leave open positions unfilled and streamline work processes to save money.
"The newspaper business model has changed and this restructuring will allow us to align more resources with what readers and advertisers are demanding from us," Publisher and Chief Executive Par Ridder said in a prepared statement. He said revenue has been declining since 2004.
The Star Tribune employs 2,100 people, including about 375 in the newsroom, it said. In March, 24 newsroom workers took voluntary buyouts triggered by McClatchy Co.'s sale of the paper to Avista Capital Partners.
The new buyouts would include a year's pay for staffers who have been at the paper for 26 years or more. Newspaper Guild local representative Martin Demgen said the union has to agree to any buyouts, although the company can lay people off if it doesn't agree. He said the union would try to negotiate better terms.
"I think management is underestimating the level of passion people have here for their work, for their jobs, for the people they cover," said Chris Serres, the Vice Chair of the Star Tribune unit of the Newspaper Guild. "I don't think they are going to get anywhere near 50 people."
Average weekday circulation at the Star Tribune dropped 4.9 percent to 345,252 during the six-month period ending in March.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)