Three Alabama Newspapers to Cut Back Jobs

The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times, Mobile’s Press-Register and al.com, these three newspapers and online news outlet may be ones that you read daily, if you happen to live in the state of Alabama. What you may not know, even if you read these papers is that these organizations are getting ready to merge into one single news entity in the near future. The move, which is no doubt designed to decrease the costs of running news outlets and increase overall profitability in these hard times, will however come with some serious casualties. Those casualties will include the loss of 400 jobs from workers at the various publications. These are partially to do with a decrease in the printing schedules of the physical papers, and an increased focus on digital media for the publications. Sadly, this means there are going to be some significant cuts to the news rooms of many of these organizations as boots on the ground news collection workers are taking the brunt of the losses.

The company is trying to, at least, be nice to the soon to be displaced workers. In a statement made to a reporter for AL.com, the following was said by Pam Siddall, the president of Advance Central Services of Alabama, which will handle production, distribution, technology, finance and human resources, “We regret that we will not be able to offer employment to all of our current staffs in the new companies. We are providing our departing employees with as much advance notice as possible and offering to them a generous severance agreement and outplacement packages.” Those sentiments were echoed by Cindy Martin, the president of the Alabama Media Group to the same reporter when she said, “Their dedication and expertise to our newspapers and the communities they served cannot be overstated. We offer our sincere gratitude to each person for their contributions and years of service to these excellent institutions.” While this may seem like little consolation to the worker who are going to be out of a job, it is at least better then some of the cold dumpings that some employers have taken to using in the current economy.

The good news is that the two new companies that are going to be formed know as Alabama Media Group and Advance Central Services Alabama, are going to be doing some hiring when all is said and done. The company is expecting to post about 100 vacant positions on the AL.com site by the end of the next week. Those workers who are getting the layoff notices this week will have a leg up in the hiring for the new companies.

Employees who are not selected will be give some severance benefits, but for the time being the company is not outlining a list of those benefits. The company has not put up a list of workers who are being impacted by the job losses, but one local blogger in the state, Wade Kwon has made his own list of the impacted workers for public review.