WASHINGTON (AFP) — Gannett, the largest US newspaper chain, slashed more jobs Tuesday and the 100-year-old Christian Science Monitor said it was ending its print edition, the latest cost-cutting moves in an ailing US newspaper industry.
Gannett Co. Inc.'s plan to cut another 10 percent of its newspaper staff and the Monitor's decision to drop print for an Internet-based strategy come as US newspapers suffer steep declines in circulation and advertising revenue.
According to preliminary figures released this week by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, circulation for 507 daily US newspapers fell 4.64 percent in the six months to September to 38.16 million copies.
US newspapers have been suffering a steady decline in circulation and a loss of readership and advertising to online media and the current economic downturn has exacerbated the situation.
Robert Dickey, president of Gannett US Community Publishing, cited the financial crisis in a memo to publishers and general managers telling them of the need to reduce staff by 10 percent by the first week of December.
"As all of you are painfully aware, the fiscal crisis is deepening and the economy is getting worse," he wrote. "Gannett's revenues continue to be severely impacted by this downturn, and our local operations are suffering."
Gannett, which already announced some 1,000 job cuts in August, on Friday reported that net income fell 32.5 percent in the third quarter of the year, to 158 million dollars from 234 million dollars during the same period last year.
Gannett, which has its headquarters in Virginia, is the largest newspaper chain in the United States, publishing USA Today and 84 other newspapers and nearly 900 non-daily publications. It also operates 32 television stations.
The company has approximately 46,100 employees, according to its website, but it does not publicize how many are employed in the newspaper division.
As Gannett was cutting jobs, the award-winning Christian Science Monitor announced plans to end its daily print edition next year and become the first national US newspaper to take a solely Internet-based approach.
The Boston-based paper, which like other US dailies has been steadily losing print readership, said it would drop its daily print edition from April 2009.
The Monitor said it will continue to offer subscribers weekly print and daily email editions but the changes are designed to turn the paper into "an online publication that is updated continuously each day."
Monitor editor John Yemma said "a modest reduction" in the paper's 95-person editorial staff was likely once the moves to online were completed. The paper's website, CSMonitor.com, currently attracts some 1.5 million visitors a month.
"We plan to take advantage of the Internet in order to deliver the Monitor's journalism more quickly, to improve the Monitor's timeliness and relevance, and to increase revenue and reduce costs," said Judy Wolff, chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society.
The Monitor, which has a circulation of 50,000 and has won seven Pulitzer Prizes, the top US journalism award, said it was forecast to lose 18.9 million dollars in the budget year ending April 30 and would require a subsidy of 12.1 million dollars from its backer, the Christian Science church.
The moves at Gannett and the Monitor come a day after another round of job cuts at the Los Angeles Times, which laid off 75 members of its editorial staff on Monday.
Print advertising revenue has been declining at newspapers across the country as circulation drops and more readers go online for their news.
Many advertisers have been shifting their dollars to the Internet but gains in online advertising revenue have generally failed to keep pace with losses on the print side.
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