Joining Forces

Cost Cutting and Consolidation

The Star-Ledger will print The Times of Trenton, which will remain a separate paper

The day after The Times of Trenton and The Star-Ledger of Newark unveiled plans to consolidate printing and some back-office functions last week, editorial employees of The Times received two different kinds of memos.

One told part-time staffers that it was "very uncertain" that jobs would continue to exist for part-timers, who number about 25 in the newsroom.

The other memo assured the newsroom's roughly 60 full-time employees that they would not face layoffs, thanks to the company's job security pledge.

However, Times staffers were called oneby-one into editor Brian Malone's office and either advised to stay with the paper or urged to accept the buyouts being offered to nonunion employees at both The Times and The Star-Ledger.

The Times told reporters that full-timers who take the package can pocket six months of wages plus bonuses based on their years of service. Part-timers are entitled to six weeks of pay plus bonuses. Times' staffers who don't take the buyouts can be shifted to different jobs.

The consolidation and buyouts reflect industry-wide cost-cutting brought on in part by fierce competition for advertising revenue from the Internet and other electronic media.

"Most companies that own newspapers in well-defined geographic areas are doing this," says newspaper analyst John Morton, the president of Morton Research in Silver Spring, Md. "It's called 'clustering.'"

The Gannett chain has done that with some of its New Jersey properties. For example, Gannett's Asbury Park Press, Home News Tribune and Ocean County Observer are all printed at a combined printing facility in Freehold. Some back-office functions also are shared.

Buyouts are an increasingly common feature of the newspaper industry as increasing competition and cost pressures cause companies to retrench. Staffers at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, The Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times have been offered buyouts in recent months.

The Times and Star-Ledger are both owned by Advance Publications, whose holdings include the Cond� Nast magazine empire (The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair) and 24 newspapers across the country. The Star-Ledger, New Jersey's largest paper, has a daily circulation of nearly 400,000. The Times, the state's sixth-largest paper, has a circulation of about 67,000.

Advance, a privately held company, is controlled by members of the Newhouse family. When asked about the future of newspapers in an increasingly electronic world, Advance President Donald Newhouse told NJBIZ: "We publish newspapers, as you well know, and we will continue to publish newspapers, and that's all that I can say about it."

Last week's moves will shift printing of the 124-year-old Times, which will continue as a separate newspaper, from its Trenton plant and offices to The Star-Ledger's Piscataway printing facility. Also included in the consolidation will be the two papers' accounting services and some circulation operations.

Times reporters say they have been told that state news, features, copy editing and page design will be handled at The StarLedger's Newark offices. Meanwhile, The Times will close its Statehouse bureau.

Reporters said they were told The Times would still exist, but would become more Webbased, and more of an online tool.

George Arwady, publisher of The StarLedger, said The Times' "own staff will continue to cover Trenton and Mercer County. We're simply combining those functions that are the back-office business-type functions."

Arwady said the two papers have long shared some editorial resources. "There has been Star-Ledger material in The Times for years," he said. "They run Yankees coverage and [Jerry] Izenberg [sports] columns, and travel sections. That will continue and will accelerate somewhat."

Times Publisher Richard Bilotti could not be reached for comment. But in a prepared statement Bilotti said, "There won't be any changes noticeable to readers and advertisers, except improvements in printing from the modern Star-Ledger equipment. We're implementing common-sense efficiencies, just as any business must do from time to time."

Moreover, Bilotti added, "We want to ensure the long-term survival of The Times. The successful implementation of these changes will do just that."

Such assurances did little to lighten the mood of many Times staffers last week. "It may be a better daily news force," said one reporter. "But it won't be the way it was. It's not chipper around here. People are very somber."

[Sidebar]

"We want to ensure the long-term survival of The Times. The successful implementation of these changes will do just that."

Richard Bilotti

Publisher, The Times of Trenton

[Author Affiliation]

E-mail to sgoldstein@njbiz.com