Spokesman-Review lays off 14 in newsroom

The Spokesman-Review laid off 14 employees from the newsroom Thursday, part of a companywide cost-savings plan to offset declining advertising and circulation revenues.

Publisher W. Stacey Cowles said “it’s heartbreaking to have to tell people they don’t have a job at the paper anymore,” but the industry’s struggling business model is forcing tough decisions.

Cowles said the news operation will focus on “making sure we have a great report and not sacrifice quality.” He acknowledged that “we may have to sacrifice some quantity.”

“I’m grateful for the time and energy the folks we let go have given to the newspaper,” he said.

The cuts are in the newsroom’s downtown, Idaho and Spokane Valley offices and include 12 members of the Spokane Editorial Society union, a manager, and one non-union employee.

Cowles said layoffs also are planned in the circulation, marketing and prepress departments. The combination of layoffs and early retirement incentives will eliminate about 40 positions from the company by the end of the year, Cowles said.

The newsroom layoffs represent a reduction of just less than $1 million from a newsgathering budget of more than $9 million, said Editor Steven A. Smith. Of the company’s 550 employees, about 137 worked in the newsroom before the reductions.

Smith said there will be a modest number of additional cuts announced next week for a total number of involuntary layoffs of 15 to 17.

“To a person, the employees who are losing their jobs are top-flight professionals,” Smith said. “I recruited and hired every one of them and I will miss them personally as well as professionally. Their departure means a significant strategic reassessment of the newspaper and its mission. As a newsroom, we are going to take the next few days to focus on the needs of those employees who have lost their jobs.”

Next week editors will begin the process of restructuring assignments and news coverage, he said.

SES President Erica Curless said the reductions are devastating for “all the talented journalists who have helped make The Spokesman-Review a success.”

But she called the layoffs a particular loss “for journalism in Idaho and the Spokane Valley – the very places experiencing the most growth in the region. I’m unsure how the newspaper can now provide the coverage readers deserve and expect,” she said.

The SES bargaining unit and management began wage negotiations for 2008 this week.