Huckleberries Online

Posts tagged: Stacey Cowles

Cowles Announces 5% Pay Cuts

Posted by DFO

Feb. 16, 2009 4:02 p.m. • 25 comments

In a half-hour meeting with Spokesman-Review employees this afternoon, Publisher Stacey Cowles announced that the paper will cut salaries 5% across the board for all managers, all non-union employees and, with their voluntary consent, all union employees. In a prepared statement, Cowles said: “The good news is that we remain a solvent, going concern as a news media organization and our just-released Belden market research shows that our readership levels have remained stable over the past four years. The bad news is that the turbulent and unpredictable nature of the current recessionary economy generally, and the advertising and newspaper markets specifically, is forcing us to cut costs outside our usual budget cycle.” Employees who earn less that $11 per hour will be exempt from the cuts. Cowles concluded: “I cannot guarantee restoration of the reduction, but we may be able to visit this issue in a year, depending on how the economy and our business changes in that time.”

About this blog

D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.