Rab interviews several journalists who took the “voluntary” buyouts.

You can read it through this link.

 Those in the business – and now out of it – will recognize most of the names, and recall most of the facts in the fairly detailed article.

The story posted today by Henry Frederick, on NSBnews.net – an online community newspaper in New Smyrna Beach:

By Henry Frederick

DAYTONA BEACH — Forty-three employees of the Daytona Beach News-Journal lost their jobs earlier today, according to several sources.

Of the 43 cuts, 16 were in the newsroom and nine were unionized pressmen. The others were from various other departments.

Executive Editor Don Lindley informed the terminated employees in an e-mail and then left for the day at 4 p.m. without facing any of those whose jobs were cut, according to an inside source.

Buyouts offered

One of two terminated newsroom reporters is a single mother with a baby, whose recent beat was the city of Deltona. A sports columnist who has written a popular column for more than a decade was terminated as was a longtime photographer, a librarian, a longtime regional editor a page designer in Accent and a page designer on the news desk. Several others in the newsroom were offered and took buyouts, including the senior managing editor Troy Moore, whose last day was Saturday.

Just four years ago, the News-Journal employed more than 800 people and had a daily circulation that hovered around 100,000, but after losing a series of appeals of the $129 million federal court judgment awarded to minority owner Cox Enterprises, the News-Journal’s circulation has plummeted and so has its staff by almost two thirds. The suit was spurred by the late Tippen Davidson’s decision to spend $13 million on naming rights without Cox’s permission for the $29 million News-Journal Center, a cultural arts Center on Beach Street that is now owned by Daytona State College

No buyers for newspaper

The News-Journal has had trouble finding a buyer in this national recession that has wreaked havoc on newspapers across the country, with some offers hovering around $20 million.

The Pennysavers were consolidated earlier this summer and last year the News-Journal closed its bureaus in New Smyrna Beach, DeLand, Deltona and Bunnell.

The former Pennysaver/News-Journal bureau on Canal Street is now the headquarters for the re-election of Mayor Sally Mackay.

Link to the story in The Palm Beach Post here.

Cox Media reorganizes its top tier

Meanwhile, the parent group, Cox Media Group, reorganizes. Here’s the circles chart. (NP = newspaper. RD = radio)

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, August 06, 2009

The owner of the Austin American-Statesman has taken the newspaper off the market after deciding that offers it had received did not reflect the value of the company.

The Statesman will operate as part of Cox Media Group, a publishing, digital media and broadcasting subsidiary of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises.

“Cox Enterprises said from the beginning that it would not preside over a fire sale,” Statesman publisher Michael Vivio said Thursday. “This is a profitable company, and it just did not make sense to sell it for the prices offered.

“We look forward to continuing our pursuit of excellence as journalists, as a media company and as a partner with our customers,” Vivio said.

Cox put the Statesman and 28 other daily and weekly newspapers on the market in August 2008 and has sold most of them, including the Waco Tribune-Herald, The Lufkin Daily News and The Daily Sentinel in Nacogdoches, Texas. The Longview News-Journal and The Marshall News Messenger remain for sale.

Vivio said the past year has been a difficult one for Statesman employees.

“We’ve managed to get a lot done nonetheless, and it’s a tribute to their entrepreneurial spirit and hard work,” Vivio said.

In the past year, the Statesman has finished work on a $36 million expansion of its packaging facility to make it more efficient. It also has launched weekly newspapers in Leander and Cedar Park, and its web sites have achieved the top ranking nationally in market share for a daily newspaper.

During the time it was for sale, the Statesman grew its total audience, in print and online, by 5.7 percent.

 Cox Enterprises Inc. agreed to sell more than a dozen North Carolina newspapers to a company headed by the son of late billionaire Jack Kent Cooke.
Cox said Monday that it will sell the Rocky Mount Telegram, The Daily Reflector of Greenville and The Daily Advance of Elizabeth City along with 10 weekly papers in eastern North Carolina.
John Kent Cooke, who heads Cooke Communications LLC, said in a statement that the group believes in the tradition of family-owned independent newspapers. His son, John Kent Cooke Jr., will serve as president of Cooke Communications North Carolina and publisher of The Daily Reflector.
Georgia-based Cox Enterprises continues to market its newspapers in Texas.