LOS ANGELES — The proprietor of the Los Angeles Times has bought sister paper The San Diego Union-Tribune to MediaNews Group, which owns a whole bunch of papers across the nation, the paper introduced Monday.
The determination comes after the LA Times introduced final month that it was chopping 74 jobs — 13% of its newsroom positions — to cope with monetary difficulties.
The Union-Tribune, which covers the second-largest metropolis in California, will now be owned by the identical chain that owns a slew of Southern California newspapers. The guardian firm is Alden Global Capital, a New York hedge fund that has been shopping for up newspapers throughout the nation and confronted criticism for slashing budgets and chopping jobs.
The new proprietor is providing worker buyouts by means of subsequent Monday and will lay individuals off, the Union-Tribune reported. Sharon Ryan, govt vice chairman of California for MediaNews Group, mentioned in an e-mail to workers that cutbacks shall be wanted to “offset the slowdown in revenues as economic headwinds continue to impact the media industry,” the paper reported. Efforts shall be made to make cuts away from the newsroom, the e-mail mentioned.
The LA Times and Union-Tribune have been bought in 2018 by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong and his household for $500 million from Chicago-based Tribune Publishing. The Union-Tribune sale was accomplished Monday, in accordance with a memo to workers members from the California Times president and chief govt officer, Chris Argentieri.
The worth of the sale wasn’t disclosed.
“Our intention now is to focus on the ongoing work of transforming the L.A. Times into a self-sustaining institution,” Patrick Soon-Shiong mentioned in a press release contained in Argentieri’s memo. “Our hometown of Los Angeles and the state of California – really, the West Coast – needs a strong, independent news organization. We believe in the L.A. Times and are committed to its future.”
In his memo, Argentieri mentioned the homeowners “have made a good faith effort to rebuild and support both news organizations.”
“We hope that this change now will position both the L.A. Times and San Diego Union-Tribune to succeed,” he wrote.
Argentieri didn’t point out the worth of the sale and didn’t point out whether or not there shall be any worker cuts on the Union-Tribune, which has 220 workers.
According to its web site, Denver-based MediaNews Group owns 68 day by day and greater than 300 weekly publications all through the United States, together with the Denver Post, Mercury News of San Jose, Orange County Register, St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Boston Herald, with a mixed month-to-month viewers of greater than 60 million print and on-line viewers.
The firm, by means of its Southern California News Group, additionally owns the Los Angeles Daily News, Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Daily Breeze, Press-Telegram, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News, Whittier Daily News, San Bernardino Sun, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and Redlands Daily Facts.
The information business has been rocked in current months by layoffs at information organizations together with The Washington Post and National Public Radio. The determination for the LA Times to shed its sister paper got here days after journalists at two dozen native newspapers throughout the U.S. walked off the job to demand an finish to painful cost-cutting measures at Gannett, the nation’s greatest newspaper chain.
Gannett mentioned the cuts aimed to deal with declining income amid a downturn in advert gross sales and buyer subscriptions.
The newspaper business has struggled for years with such challenges as promoting has shifted from print to digital, and readers have deserted native newspapers for on-line sources of knowledge and leisure.
Content Source: www.washingtontimes.com