Bad news all around

Now what? Or, more to the point, who's next?

Those are two questions on the minds of employees of the Pasadena Star-News, whose parent company, Los Angeles Newspaper Group (LANG), announced major personnel cuts at all of its area newspapers, among them the Daily News of Los Angeles, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the South Bay Daily Breeze, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the San Bernardino Sun, the Whittier Daily News, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the local daily.

Over the past several months, accountants for media magnate Dean Singleton have been paring down operations at all news operations controlled by his Denver-based MediaNews Group, including those in Northern California with Singleton's Bay Area Newspaper Group (BANG), among them the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times.

All told, more than 70 staff cuts have been made at the various Southern California newspaper operations. "Everyone's stressed out, everyone's paranoid," said one Star-News worker who asked not to be identified.

However, Singleton's certainly not alone in cutting personnel - particularly in news departments - to offset losses due to drops

in revenue.

The LA Times has either laid off or offered buyouts to many of the paper's top reporters and editors, among them Jeff Rabin, Cecelia Rasmussen, Greg Krikorian and veteran legal affairs reporter Henry Weinstein. Weinstein reportedly took a buyout after writing for the Times for more than 30 years.

On Monday, the blog LAObserved, operated by former LA Times reporter Kevin Roderick, reported 31 press workers with the Times - 10 percent of the pressroom workforce, including the last remaining relative of the Chandler family that once owned the paper - were let go.

But while it appears that Singleton's media empire is crumbling - with cuts still being made to reach a 10 percent reduction in costs - filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission tell a different story.

According to a Jan. 24 story in the Monterey County Weekly, MediaNews Group posted record revenues of $1.3 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, up 59 percent from the previous year. In addition, MediaNews' net income skyrocketed to $35.6 million from $1.1 million in 2006.

On the flip side of all this prosperity, however, the company posted debts of $1.12 billion as of June 30. For the following fiscal quarter ending Sept. 30, MediaNews revenue totaled $334.7 million, up from $295.3 million a year earlier. However,

the Monterey alternative paper reported, with higher costs the company lost $1.01 million during that quarter.

Singleton, wrote reporter Jessica Lyons, apparently fared pretty well during 2007, earning $1.65 million, including $1.06 million in salary, stock options, bonuses and other perks. Also in 2007, MediaNews paid $25 million in cash dividends to its shareholders.

In Pasadena, it was announced last week that Steve O'Sullivan, executive editor with LANG's San Gabriel Valley Newspaper division, (SGVN), was laid off, along

with Star-News reporters Emanuel Parker and Elise Kleeman.

O'Sullivan, who was SGVN's executive editor for the past 18 months, previously served as the group's managing editor. He will be replaced by Frank Pine, senior managing editor for LANG's Inland Division. Pine, 36, of Rancho Cucamonga, had been senior managing editor of the San Bernardino Sun and the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin since 2006. †

According to a blog by former Star-News staffer Gary Scott, there are five reporters left at that paper to cover governments and schools in a dozen communities.

Other Singleton papers have taken much harder hits than the Star-News, although layoffs and buyouts are probably not yet finished.

The Press-Telegram, according to a recent editorial in that paper, "has consolidated its newsroom production jobs - copy editing

and page design - with those functions at our sister newspaper, the South Bay Daily Breeze in Torrance. Sadly," wrote Executive Editor Rich Archibold, "this has eliminated the jobs of nine of our newsroom colleagues."

The Daily News took the hardest hit among the Singleton-owned papers, with 22 newsroom employees either being asked to leave or opting for buyouts, and its Sacramento bureau closing.

Staffers at the Contra Costa Times were a little more fortunate than their Southland counterparts, avoiding layoffs after enough reporters there took buyout deals to make up the mandated 10 percent staffing reduction.

As a recent story in the Contra Costa Times points out, "A number of other newspapers, large and small, in virtually every sector of the country, have reduced their staffing levels in recent months, or announced plans to do so."

A total of 10 positions were eliminated from newsrooms in Pasadena, Whittier and West Covina, where the Tribune is located, according to Scott's blog, http://reporter-g.blogspot.com. On Tuesday, Star-News reporter Molly Okeon gave notice that she was leaving.

"It has been a brutal few weeks for the paper," according to a post on Editor's Corner, a blog written by the Tribune's Edward Barrera. "Layoffs, buyouts, and anger [is] welling up from staff due to circumstances beyond our control. I'm not going to rehash it or minimize it; we will be doing less with less. But we can - and will still - do some serious journalism. We, as editors, need to encourage and listen to our reporters. We need to allow the ones who show enthusiasm and talent the time to look outside City Hall," Barrera wrote.

Since few of the newspapers being hit are writing about their financial troubles, journalism-related blogs have taken on an added importance to people in the industry trying to figure out what's going on.

"Everyone's checking into LAObserved every 30 minutes to find out what's going to happen next," said the Star-News employee.