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Massive Cuts at The Worcester Telegram - Top Staff Fired

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

GoLocalProv Business Team

 

The bloodletting at the Worcester Telegram hit a new level, with the elimination of many of the remaining top staffers both in the newsroom and on the business side.

Included in the departures are Marketing Director Averil Capers, cartoonist Dave Hitch, and Chris Sinacola. In addition, another seven have been laid off including sales and all web services. Hitch may be filling in for a short-term.

The cuts are just the latest by the newspaper's most recent owner GateHouse Media. This is the fourth ownership group in two years for Worcester’s only daily newspaper.

In addition, more cuts maybe come this week as copy editing is expected to be moved to Texas.

Putting Cuts in Perspective 

"This second newsroom layoff in less than 12 months is truly unfortunate. By my count, the T&G newsroom has been cut by roughly 30 percent since Boston Globe owner John Henry decided last June to forsake the idea of local ownership for this institution,” said former Telegram Online Director Mark Henderson.

"Worcester deserves better than to have half the number of local journalists it had six years ago. Worcester is a vital, vibrant city, and the actions of the owners of the T&G appear out of sync with that reality,” said Henderson, who has been working to launch a print and digital competitor - the Worcester Sun.

Today’s cuts are expected to be followed by even more this week. Copy editing functions are expected to be eliminated and consolidated in Austin, Texas - GateHouse’s centralized facility.  

The old building location of the Telegram was left to taxpayers and a non-profit to clean contamination and rehab

As GoLocalWorcester reported last year, 28 Telegram staffers were cut in June.

The staff reductions are far greater than a worst case scenario outlined in a consultants report leaked to GoLocal last summer. The Telegram's newsroom had 84 employees on June 1, 2014. It is now estimated to be just 59 today -- less than half of the staffing level of 125 in late 2009.  

In just two years the newspaper has been sold by the New York Times company to John Henry is a package with the Boston Globe. Then, the paper was sold by the Globe to Halifax, and then flipped again to GateHouse.

As GoLocal reported in May of 2014, the Telegram has had tremendous loss of revenue in the past few years:

GoLocalWorcester.com has received copy of key deal documents relating to the marketing and sale of the Telegram and Gazette. These documents outline a newspaper that has shrunk to a fraction of its former size and show that its digital strategy has been stagnant for years. Moreover, the documents outline a strategy that recommends as many as 20 to 30 newsroom cuts.

Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, the consulting firm hired to market the Telegram -- who proclaim they are the leading merger and acquisition firm in the U.S. newspaper industry -- unveiled a Telegram and Gazette that has lost more than 50% of its circulation.

The documents secured by GoLocalWorcester also disclosed that the Telegram and Gazette has lost more than 25% of its total revenue over the last three reported years.

 

Related Slideshow: The Living History of the Telegram and Gazette

From contamination to a sale, and injunction to layoffs, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette has been through quite an interesting run in a very short time. Since 2012, GoLocal has been chronicling the goings on of Worcester's only daily printed newspaper. Take a look at our coverage:

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April 6, 2012

T&G Massive Layoff: A Harsh Reality For Ex-Employees

If the Worcester Telegram & Gazette was offering alternatives for the 64 employees it is laying off, Luis Lopez didn’t get the memo.
 
“I knew it was coming, but it’s hard,” the 37-year-old father of two girls said of being laid off Monday from the job he held for six years at the T&G’s Millbury printing plant. “When I came here, they promised me they would not lay me off. Now look at me.”
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June 22, 2012

NY Times Corp Leaves Taxpayer on the Hook for Contamination in Worcester

The New York Times Company has sold a contaminated Worcester Telegram and Gazette building to a local development agency, leaving taxpayers on the hook for potentially up to $1.1 million in cleanup costs.

Before the sale, Telegram and Gazette publisher Bruce Gaultney publicly promised that the building was “not a brownfield.”

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June 27, 2012

NY Times Company Agrees to Pay for Cleanup

The New York Times Company announced that they have agreed to pay for cleanup costs associated with contamination left at the former location of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette at 18-20 Franklin Street.
 
The announcement comes just days after a GoLocalWorcester investigative report that unveiled that the property was a brownsfield site, despite claims by the publisher that it was not.  The non-profit Worcester Business Development Corporation, which bought the property, is receiving government funds to pay for the cleanup of the former newspaper headquarters.
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July 2, 2012

T&G Building Contamination Has Unions Concerned

Two local unions are concerned about the health hazards at the former Telegram & Gazette building, after the NY Times Company sold the property to a local nonprofit and the building was declared a brownfield site.
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July 10, 2012

NY Times Co Only Commits to 10% of Cleanup Cost

The NY Times Company is only committed to paying 10% of costs to cleanup the hazardous materials at the T&G building, leaving taxpayers footing most of the $1.1 million bill to clean up asbestos, lead, and other contaminants.
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July 11, 2013

Taxpayers Demand Accountability for T&G Cleanup

Local taxpayers are demanding that the NY Times Company takes responsibility and pays for the T&G cleanup.
 
Thus far, the corporation has only offered to pay for 10% of the estimated $1.1 million cleanup costs to rid the building of asbestos, lead, and other hazardous contaminants.
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July 13, 2012

Officials Call for NY Times to Clean Up T&G Contamination

Massachusetts legislators, candidates, and councilors are calling for the NY Times to contribute more money for the cleanup of the T&G building contamination. Across the board and across the aisle, they say there’s a need for more corporate responsibility and taxpayers should not be stuck with the bill when a large company is involved.
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July 24, 2012

Worcester Telegram, Boston Globe Facing Layoffs

The Boston Globe and Worcester T&G are facing layoffs and buyouts, affecting a total of about fifty employees between the two markets. Both newspapers are owned by the same media group which is a subsidiary of the New York Times Company.
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February 7, 2013

Murray Says T&G May Have to Pay Up for Building Contamination

Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray said that the brownfield site cleanup at the former home of the Worcester Telegram may still take some funding from the former owner, the NY Times Co. The building was sold by the news company after an estimated $1.1 million in cleanup costs to remove asbestos, lead, and other contaminants.
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February 20, 2013

Worcester Telegram, Boston Globe Up For Sale

The New York Times Company announced on Wednesday that the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Boston Globe and their related websites are up for sale.
The company has retained Evercore Partners to advise and manage the sales process of the two newspapers, along with the other related properties contained within the New York Times Co.'s New England Media Group.
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August 3, 2013

Boston Globe and Telegram Sold - Lose 94% of Value

 
The New York Times Company has dumped the Boston Globe, Worcester Telegram and some other holdings for less than 6% of what they had paid for the combined assets over the past three decades. John Henry's sports and media group will pay approximately $70 million.
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August 5, 2013

http://www.golocalprov.com/business/29273/">What the Experts Say About the Boston Globe and Telegram Sale
 
On Saturday morning, August 3, at 3 A.M., the New York Times Company confirmed the sale of the Boston Globe, Worcester Telegram, and other New England assets to John Henry in an all-cash, $70 million deal.
 
Go Local reached out to top experts on media to get their perspective on the transaction, and insights as to what this means for the future of the paper, as well as industry as a whole. The Boston Globe, once the biggest force in media, has been in decline over the past decade, and now faces an uncertain future.
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August 18, 2013

Starkman: For the Telegram & Gazette, a Moment of Opportunity

The tectonic shifts changing the global media landscape are rolling through Southeastern New England, right on schedule.
 
The media empire of the Providence Journal’s parent company, Dallas-based A.H. Belo, has been coming apart for years, and now, with the sale last week of its Riverside, California, operation, the Press-Enterprise, down to just two main properties. The hope here is that the Projo will, too, be sold before long and end the chronic and debilitating cycle of downsizing for the newsroom and bonuses for the executive suite that has marked the Belo regime.
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October 23, 2013

John Henry Faces T&G Labor Dispute And Globe Toxic Waste

For John Henry, the St. Louis Cardinals may pale in comparison to the challenges he faces with the Telegram & Gazette and the Boston Globe. In Worcester, he’s now dealing with a temporary restraining order that blocks his purchase of the two papers. In Boston, the Globe’s headquarters sit on land that is highly contaminated.
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October 24, 2013

Injunction Blocking Globe Sale Lifted

Judge Shannon Frison of Worcester Superior Court has lifted an injunction blocking the sale of the Boston Globe, and affiliated Worcester Times & Gazette, to Red Sox owner John Henry. On Thursday afternoon, the judge ruled removed the order which was requested as part of a lawsuit filed by former Telegram & Gazette adult carriers.
 
 

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