Tribune Co. makeover cuts 57 positions at Hartford Courant
Details are emerging about how the Tribune Co.’s planned sweeping changes will affect individual media outlets.
At the Hartford Courant, editor Clifford Teutsch told staffers to gird themselves for heavy cuts, according to a memo acquired by Poynter’s Jim Romanesko.
Weekly pages will drop from 273 to 206, and the newspaper will cut 57 jobs, dropping the number of positions from 232 to 175, according to Teutsch, who acknowledged the changes may be “life changing for some” and “a shock.”
Few reporters and editors are safe. The Courant is offering voluntary buyouts to its entire news staff, except for Web personnel. Seniority will not be a determining factor in who goes and who stays. Subsequent layoffs are expected, according to the memo.
Time isn’t on the side of the Courant’s staff, either. Staffers have until July 9 to decide whether or not to apply for a buyout. And while Teutsch says that “the decision about whether to seek a buyout will depend on knowing how the Courant will change,” he also concedes that Tribune’s “vision for the new paper will be clearer, but not fully formed by July 9.”
