The Tampa Tribune to Layoff 16%

It is no surprise to people inside the industry, and even most of them outside of it, that the newspaper industry is not going well at all from a fiscal point of view. As more and more people move over to the free options on the web, either because of the lower costs or because they want their news to be immediate, the printed paper has decreased in circulation and that means lower sales. As a way to recoup some of those losses newspapers have gone through a lot of different strategies. Some of them went onto the web, or moved to digital addition in order to make up the profits.

In some cases it works, and in others it is simply not enough. That means other measures have to be taken and staff has to be let go for the paper to be in the black. That was the case for the staff at The Tampa Tribune this week. They found out that a total of 165 people are going to lose their jobs right before the holidays. The majority of the employees who are going to be cut are being notified today and throughout the rest of the week.

For those of you who are not familiar with the publication The Tampa Tribune is actually a family of community and weekly publications. The group includes not only local newspapers and other publications but a website (Tbo.com) and a local television news station. Though you should note that none of the cuts are coming from the TV station, since that area of the business is in a better position that the others, according to data released by the company.

These cuts will represent a reduction of about 16 percent of the workforce for The Tampa Tribune.

John Schauss, vice president of market operations at Tribune owner Media General, told a reporter for TBO.com the following about the layoffs, “Going forward, we will still have more than 300 content generators across multiple media platforms in the Tampa market. Every one of our platforms has content producers who benefit Tampa Tribune readers. We will maintain and over time enhance the quality of our newspaper.”

The displaces staffers are to receive a severance package, in addition to their unemployment benefits, but the company is not currently releasing any details about the package to the public at the current moment. These cuts will leave roughly 675 people on the payrolls.

The media group is looking to go in a whole new direction with their time and money. While the print product will still be in production, for the time being, the company is slanting further towards digital products than they did in the past. One of the primary targets that they hope to appeal to is mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets and e-readers. The company also hopes to focus on social media markets.

In addition a change in the reporting strategy will occur. The company expects to have its journalists embedded more deeply on their beats, with some of them acting as mobile journalists.