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Tribune slashing jobs as McClatchy freefalls

March 9, 2009
The Tribune may be under more red than just the awnings. -- Photo by Daniel Blackburn

The Tribune may be under more red than just the awnings. — Photo by Daniel Blackburn

By KAREN VELIE

San Luis Obispo County’s daily newspaper, The Tribune, will terminate seven employees, and its top officials are reported to be warning of massive layoffs to come in the wake of a similarly foreboding announcement this morning by parent company McClatchy Newspapers Inc.

Tribune executives told staff, said one employee, that “they are facing bankruptcy if [the newspaper] is not sold within 30 days.”

Tribune publisher Bruce Ray said there has been no talk of bankruptcy and directed a CalCoastNews reporter to call corporate offices in Sacramento.

McClatchy Newspaper Inc. Treasurer Elaine Lintecum was asked if The Tribune was for sale, and facing financial difficulties if such a sale did not occur within 30 days.

“That is speculation. We don’t comment on speculation or news that hasn’t been released to the public,” she said. The Tribune’s parent company, McClatchy Newspapers Inc, said today it will reduce its workforce by 15 percent, or around 1,600 full-time equivalent employees, and cut wages for remaining staff as part of previously announced restructuring plans.

The familiar corner Tribune newspaper stand may be a thing of the past. -- Photo by Daniel Blackburn

The familiar corner Tribune newspaper stand may be a thing of the past. — Photo by Daniel Blackburn

In September, a group of county investors, hoping to keep The Tribune locally owned, revealed attempts to purchase the struggling daily from its parent company. Sources said today that possibility still exists.

Newspapers throughout the country are stretched thin as they struggle with decreased readership and mounting debts. McClatchy, the country’s third largest newspaper chain, was more than $2 billion in debt at the end of 2008.

In 2007, McClatchy’s stock plunged nearly 70 percent. In January 2008, stock sold for approximately $10 a share. And this afternoon, following today’s announcement, stock fell 30 percent to 41 cents a share.

Since the early 1990s, newspaper readerships has been on a steady decline, with a 19 percent reduction in advertising revenue over the past four years. In contrast, the online news audience has skyrocketed from approximately 40 million in 2004, to 69 million as of October 2008, according to Nielsen online.


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By: NorthCountyGuy on 3/19/09

Speaking of mean-spirited censorship, the T-T did a most excellent job in covering up the terrorisms leading up to 9-11. In other words, the T-T was a willing accomplice to over 2,000 deaths caused by 9-11. The mean-spirited censorship of the T-T is more akin to Stalin and Hitler than to Mainstreet America.

By: rogerfreberg on 3/13/09

UPDATE!!!


Every time… every-single-time I blog about Cal Poly two things always happen: 1) someone tries to take down the site and sometimes successfully and 2) my blog is never found on Google. This time all of our sites are down… except the one at Microsoft… so If you haven't seen CNN's Lou Dobbs call out Cal Poly's president (obviously Warren Baker)… check this out … it is worth a real laugh:


http://www.frebergsports.com/


When are we going to get rid of this bozo?


Roger Freberg

By: rogerfreberg on 3/13/09

Heh heh, I was a paper boy for a lotta years as a kid… I know everything about putting out a newspaper!


But you are right, picking on the Trib is fun… but if you really REALLY want to see someone get hammered… take a look at this FIVE MINUTE segment where LOU DOBBS of CNN hammers the aging president of Cal Poly…


http://www.rogerfreberg.com/blog/?p=990


Not every day Cal Poly makes national news! Oh yeah, you won't see an article about this at the trib!


Roger Freberg

By: Truthbeknown on 3/12/09

mccdave on 3/12/09 said: "You wonder if a web-only local daily in SLO with a decent-sized audience could ever work. The web ought to change the economics of it, though every newspaper is struggling to find an online business model. If someone could ever figure out how to make a local news, discussion and community website that became a popular locus for the county, it'd be great. The size of the market is always the problem."


mcdave, I do know of one apparantly successful model in San Diego. You can check it out here:


http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/


http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/support_us/about_u…


I've heard former (San Diego Union-Tribune) newsprint reporters have been flocking to work with these folks.


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By: mccdave on 3/12/09

You wonder if a web-only local daily in SLO with a decent-sized audience could ever work. The web ought to change the economics of it, though every newspaper is struggling to find an online business model. If someone could ever figure out how to make a local news, discussion and community website that became a popular locus for the county, it'd be great. The size of the market is always the problem.


I guess a local factor may be the age demo of the Tribune's readership: it's probably on the elderly side, with a relatively small web audience share. I wonder how many students ever look at the Trib website.


Newspapers also need to figure out more compelling online ad formats. With broadband common now, there must be a better way, and someone's going to figure it out eventually (as Hulu did with ad-supported TV). The Trib's site has very poor quality local ads with abundant compression artifacts.


Web development and admin costs might also be a challenge for a local web-only paper unless they can use something off-the-shelf. The Trib can leverage McClatchy's web dev work, but there's nothing very impressive about it. The NY Times spends a lot on its website and it's polished but not especially innovative (unless I'm missing something).

By: Truthbeknown on 3/12/09

Not to mention they could not get enough advertising revenue. Maybe they could do a weekly 2 page newsletter?

By: rack-n-blurb on 3/12/09

Mcccdave,


I think you and I agree on the quality of work. But if you take a pragmatic approach, no paper could survive on 14 good stories a month. What to do with all the other space they need to fill each day? Got to have space between the ads.

By: mccdave on 3/12/09

I was saying Dan and Karen wouldn't fit the Trib at all. They'd never get anything resembling their articles here printed in that paper.


Let's look at the Trib's home page:

— Tabloid: grandma murder case, winery sexual harassment. Not worthless, but not worth play-by-play coverage. The Trib has someone Twittering from court, lest readers miss any salacious details.

— Police blotter: mobile home fire, grocery store stick-up.

— Light news: Atascadero egg physics, Arizona nickname.

— Biz Buzz: press release copy and paste. Most of the "business" section is like this, even full articles. For example, they credulously transcribed a local "don't worry" presentation by the CalPERS pension system and three days later the WSJ reported that CalPERS was deep into bad real estate bets (info probably derived from public disclosures).

— Wire service stories.

— Sports, weather and lifestyle articles.


Three worthwhile articles:

— Hertel bankruptcy, 400 words.

— Sheriff candidates Parkinson and Lenthall, for a June 2010 election, 700 words.

— Capps' local earmarks — looks like a verbatim press release.


I wrote a couple of articles for the T-T many years ago, and the first thing everyone said to me was, "Why are you slumming?" Back when I subscribed, I remember flipping through the Trib pretty fast.

By: rack-n-blurb on 3/12/09

February seemed a pretty prolific month for Karen and Dan. 14 stories (some follow ups) between two people. Mccdave thinks these two would be great at the Tribune. The problem is most companies need more production than 7 stories a month. The Tribune probably produces an average 8 local stories a day. Granted some are small blurbs, sports, briefs and the like but others, even the simple stories, take time to write. So 8 stories times 30 days per month equals 240.


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By: mccdave on 3/12/09

Congalton: "They do the best they can with what they have."


That's the heart of the matter: they don't do the best they can. With two people, CalCoastNews shows what real muckraking looks like, and the contrast to the Tribune is breathtaking (and I think Congalton knows this). The Trib's problem seems to be editorial management — good reporters/writers get frustrated and quit, or never think of writing for the T-T. Imagine Karen Velie and Dan Blackburn working there — the mind reels. If it was almost any other business, the editors would have been replaced a long time ago. Ultimately their business troubles must owe a lot to just being extremely boring.


Reader comments on the T-T website also reveal another big problem: this county has a lot of ill-educated conservative dittoheads who see anything that wouldn't pass muster on Fox News as "liberal socialist propaganda." They'd only subscribe to a paper that lived inside their mindless echo chamber. The Tribune doesn't have a liberal bias so much as a bias against offending anyone, and the local political divide must be one reason.


And small communities are full of cronyism and extreme sensitivity that would make life difficult for a real newspaper, but it doesn't help when editors are part of the crony network.


Congalton: "Support your local media."


There is no greater love for local press than pointing out its inanities, not that it does any good — there's no group more scandalized by criticism than the press. (I've personally experienced Sandra Duerr's anaphylactic shock at criticism.)


As much as I criticize the Trib, it's still an indispensable source of local news. I subscribed for many years.

By: congaltonkvec920 on 3/12/09

The Anonymice like Vagabond (Hi Ron) find The Tribune an easy target, just like the other Anonymice here find me an easy target. That goes with the territory.


But I suspect those who are posting have absolutely no clue what is involved in putting out a daily newspaper. You've never worked at a paper, or a TV station, or a radio station. You're armchair critics and Monday morning quarterbacks, unwilling to attach your names to your opinions.


The Tribune has never claimed to be the LA Times or the Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal. Nut they remain the newspaper of record in this county and it is important that they survive. They do the best they can with what they have. Sure, they mess up at times. Who doesn't?


If The Tribune sinks, who will we turn to? I've seen enough of my colleagues lose their jobs in the last 6 months. Support your local media.

By: George on 3/12/09

Sorry Vagabond this one should of stayed up

Vagabond


sorry, bad link, try this: http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive…

By: NorthCountyGuy on 3/11/09

Trying to pin the blame for the free-fall of Big Media, Inc. on the internet is a big Red Herring. The free-fall began when the multi-billion dollar corporate greed of Big Media, Inc. decided to cut corners and fool the public by manufacturing and manipulating fake news via condescending arrogance, fraud and deceit. Thorough investigative journalism and accurate reporting was replaced by sophomoric propaganda, flawed logic and dim-witted sound-bites. When is Big Media, Inc. going to stop covering up for the liars, cheats and thieves of Corporate America? When is Big Media, Inc. going to stop covering up for the liars, cheats and thieves infesting all levels of government?

"When it comes to arrogance, power, and lack of accountability, journalists are probably the only people on the planet who make lawyers look good." –Steven Brill

By: Vagabond on 3/11/09

OK, here is my focus.

The Tribune is possibly one of the worst newspapers in the country.

And the time Mr. Congalton was employed there is one most egregious episodes in journalism at that paper.

I wont bother with posting the links as George seems to get upset, just google sewerwatch.

By: Joe on 3/11/09

McDave, I say E, caveat: I find it amusing how quickly the "biz buzz" back-stabs allong with the CoC and other 'organizations" in town who are so quick to pull all the dirt out of the closets.


SLO Community member….Bitter much? You sound like the steer raper from Turri Creek Road.


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By: JorgeEstrada on 3/11/09

My puppy does not care who prints the paper so long as he can doo what he has to doo. As for me, I say bring back the T.T. with a fare mix.

By: mccdave on 3/11/09

Congalton: "I put my name behind my opinion. I do it on my radio show. I do it on my blog. I do it on this site, too. I'm not ashamed of opinions that I take." … "[The Tribune is] where I learned to write and write well."


Well, here's Congalton's problem right here. He never learned shame and instead practices public self-love. Learning to "write well" at the Tribune is like — let me choose my simile carefully here — letting eunuchs teach you how to screw. What is it about AM radio that attracts this? I often agree with him politically, but who wants to listen to this?


There are plenty of good reasons to write anonymously, especially in an incestuous small town filled with ninnies who can't handle criticism (Sandra Duerr being Queen of the Ninnies and a prime suspect in the Case of the Newspaper Murders). And anyway who wants to be seen commenting on CalCoastNews?


And if I were Congalton, I would have made his latest blog post anonymously, wherein he relays the cartoonish doomsaying of one Gerald Celente without so much as a single skeptical counterpoint. Whether to give air to such characters is debatable, but to do so uncritically is extremely irresponsible given people's worries today.


Is there a school somewhere that teaches the lost art of shame?

By: Truthbeknown on 3/11/09

congaltonkvec920 on 3/10/09 blurted:


"Sharibaby — Perhaps we should call you "crybaby" instead. I'm guess that smear in your last sentence about "MccCongaldave" is a reference to me making some kind of anonymous attack on the Tribune and Sandy Duerr.


Unlike you, I put my name behind my opinion. I do it on my radio show. I do it on my blog. I do it on this site, too. I'm not ashamed of opinions that I take. Like Roger Freberg, I don't like the Anonymice who inhabit and pollute the Internet with their rhetorical cowardice.


In terms of the Tribune, I feel no joy for what is happening in their newsroom. I was a part of that family from 1989 to 1998. That's where I learned to write and write well. I made many friends there and I think of Jeff Fairbanks each and every day.


If you think I'm gloating over them, then you're a bigger idiot than you appear. The Tribune is facing the same challenges all other daily papers are encountering. I blame McClatchy for buying a newspaper they couldn't afford and then hanging them out to dry.


I am proud to have been associated with that paper and I want only the best for them, even Sandy Duerr.


Your turn S.B. — or probably B.S. is more appropriate."


Is this the same Congleton that all you bloggers hold up so high on a pedestal? Is this the same man who demands respect on his show, but disses others when blogging? Sounds very hippicritical to me. Shame, shame, shame . . .

By: Truthbeknown on 3/11/09

Looks like the blogmasters are so busy dissing the Tribune and Atascadero city management, that they missed the big story about Hedges retiring.


Oh, BTW, the Tribune "scooped" you on this one: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/breaking_…


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By: mrehand on 3/11/09

I feel sorry for all the workers at the Tribune. These folks have been "rewarded" for their loyalty and for not unionizing by having their pay and benefits slashed and now being layed off by a hostile and anti union management. Maybe if the editors stopped basing all their efforts on demonizing public employees in one sided and slanted stories in a county with such a large amount of public employees they would have a larger readership? Hopefully all these employees will band together and start a new paper with a true journalistic approach and an even take on employer/employee issues.

By: NorthCountyGuy on 3/11/09

The slow demise of the Dead Tree Media is mainly caused by lazy-journalists who blindly print questionable, watered-down drivel received from suspicious sources without investigating the actual facts. If the incompetent dolts called "journalists" did know the actual facts, they would get it all mixed-up, messed-up and garbled anyway. There were two people with Masters Degrees in Journalism at my last place of employment. Neither one of those morons could write an complete sentence much less an intelligent paragraph. Looking on the bright side, the demise of the Dead Tree Media, which is occurring Nationwide, should save tons of Spotted Owls.

By: nosedatruth on 3/11/09

Another story that quotes "sources" – how convenient. We're not talking about Deep Throat here. If someone is in negotiation to buy the paper, why don't you just say who it is, or at least who told you about the negotiations?

Or do you just make this crap up?

By: congaltonkvec920 on 3/10/09

"I think the trib is getting unfairly hammered by ya'll. No good dead goes unpunished. Ask all the non-profits in town if they would like to see the Trib disappear. The Tribune helps out in countless ways trying to support the various do-gooder organizations. Can you see the New Times doing this? Doubtful. How about the number of people they employ? 170? Do you all want to see them out of work? What a bunch of frigging vultures! They shop here, live here, spend here, raise their families here. Hey MccCongaldave, how would you change the paper (other than firing Sandy)?"


Sharibaby — Perhaps we should call you "crybaby" instead. I'm guess that smear in your last sentence about "MccCongaldave" is a reference to me making some kind of anonymous attack on the Tribune and Sandy Duerr.


Unlike you, I put my name behind my opinion. I do it on my radio show. I do it on my blog. I do it on this site, too. I'm not ashamed of opinions that I take. Like Roger Freberg, I don't like the Anonymice who inhabit and pollute the Internet with their rhetorical cowardice.


In terms of the Tribune, I feel no joy for what is happening in their newsroom. I was a part of that family from 1989 to 1998. That's where I learned to write and write well. I made many friends there and I think of Jeff Fairbanks each and every day.


If you think I'm gloating over them, then you're a bigger idiot than you appear. The Tribune is facing the same challenges all other daily papers are encountering. I blame McClatchy for buying a newspaper they couldn't afford and then hanging them out to dry.


I am proud to have been associated with that paper and I want only the best for them, even Sandy Duerr.


Your turn S.B. — or probably B.S. is more appropriate.


Dave Congalton


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By: rogerfreberg on 3/10/09

The real question is whether or not any newspaper has a real future here or anywhere in America?


On this subject –Today– I got a tweet from 'Ev' (twitter.com) that said he was going to give an interview to a journalist… who then never showed. So, he then called the paper and found the reporter had been 'laid off'!


Doesn't that say everything?


Newspapers — in their present iteration — will go the way of the doddo … the 'free ones' might last just a bit longer, but they will only be a fringe medium. Print -as an entity — has lost its hold on the public mind … people can talk to each other again. I am sure the late Jeff Fairbanks would roll over in his grave.


On another issue, Blogs and bloggers tend to write as though they are in a conversation… which is more personal… and most people like it…. so, I think the internet will continue to make news and report the news… first.


So, don't cry for the Tribune. The only people who are upset are those who had an influence there.

By: JesseJames on 3/10/09

To rack-n-blurb,


I've come to the conclusion that the internet makes people stupid in general. I've met people with PhD's that as soon as they touch a keyboard spel lyk dis.

By: JesseJames on 3/10/09

In response to Joe: "Nothing is 'local' anymore. Everything comes from somewhere and everything is owned by someone somewhere else."


I think cities are the last proving ground. Local government is now more important than ever. Local news is the only news I actually care about as let's face it, the MSM isn't exactly factual nor truth chasing. It's regurgitating dilapidated junk to anyone who will click on a banner ad.


The Tribune doesn't even have a decent crossword. The Mustang Daily gets NYTimes crosswords, but the Tribune can't? Seriously?

By: rack-n-blurb on 3/10/09

I guess the readers of this blog don't read the trib…nor dictionaries. Love the "Advertizers, Mahbe, Riddens"


Back away from the keyboard, put your teeth in, go collect some tin cans and stop beating your wife.


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By: SensitiveGuy on 3/10/09

Mahbe Obama will Bail them out.Are you listening dude?Your Demcrap friends at the Trib need you.HEEEEEEEEELLLPPPPPPPPPP…

By: SensitiveGuy on 3/10/09

Biggest problem I can see is the Election recommendations they put out.It was just two damn easy to take it and vote the opposite on all heir reco's.Maybe now I can rid my house of this fish smell that followed this wrap.

By: SensitiveGuy on 3/10/09

Ask me if I care………..

By: bikersavant on 3/10/09

It's an advertizing medium. Nothing to sell equals nothing to advertize.

By: outsider on 3/10/09

Everyones tired of all the liberal articles and sources straight off AP wheel…Its more than just the industry…its the content…all from the left…and just like california, headed for bankruptcy…along with the LA Times and NYT…lol

By: sharibaby on 3/10/09


I think the trib is getting unfairly hammered by ya'll. No good dead goes unpunished. Ask all the non-profits in town if they would like to see the Trib disappear. The Tribune helps out in countless ways trying to support the various do-gooder organizations. Can you see the New Times doing this? Doubtful. How about the number of people they employ? 170? Do you all want to see them out of work? What a bunch of frigging vultures! They shop here, live here, spend here, raise their families here. Hey MccCongaldave, how would you change the paper (other than firing Sandy)?

By: mccdave on 3/10/09

Let's do a poll: What's the most ridiculous thing in the Tribune?

A) Editorials that bravely take a stand against teen alcoholism

B) Sandra Duerr's "Toss Softballs to the Editor" column

C) Lon Allan's "This Week in Precipitation" column

D) Phil Dirkx "They're Afraid That If They Fire Me, I'll Kill Myself" column

E) Biz Buzz press releases

F) Hand-job hagiographies of notable citizens like former Reagan crony Bill Clark

By: mccdave on 3/10/09

You have to wonder why the Tribune editors have been in their jobs so long, presiding over the descent. The Tribune's own article on this cited declining real estate ad revenues. Given the sh*t the Tribune has shoveled over the years on real estate, this is justice. Sandra Duerr's cronies still do occasional high school-quality articles on a consulting basis.


As always, Booty Juice crystallizes the problem: McClatchy's leveraged acquisition of Knight-Ridder was a huge and common mistake. The shame is that some McClatchy papers (not the Trib) get high marks for reporting.


I subscribed for fifteen years, and one of the pleasures of moving here from L.A. was reading and caring about local issues. But I canceled when I realized there was no point in paying for the privilege of having my intelligence insulted every day. Ten years ago I talked to a smart reporter there about an interesting story, and he was doing great work — of course he left within a year.


Roger Freberg: "…people only consider it 'expensive' relative to what you get"


One irony of reading on the web is realizing how little actual content some periodicals produce, and it's stunning that it takes 170 people to put out the Trib. You could run a press release distribution service with two people that would do 80% of what the Tribune does.


If CalCoastNews shows nothing else, it's that real muckraking is far more interesting than the pap in the Trib. Shame CCN is such a ramshackle mess. But I'm proud to see Danny getting a photo credit for that awesome bit of photojournalism — he should put in for a freakin' Pulitzer, Diane Arbus division.


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By: Booty_Juice on 3/9/09

McSnatchy is taking a pounding and that makes a tear run right down my leg. They have looted the balance sheets of more papers than perhaps any family in the US. Doesn’t that Donkey Auschwitz sanctuary operate from a $50mil McCrappy inheritance? And there are many HUNDREDS of family connections just like her scattered all over hell and back – people who in many cases have never worked a day in their lives much less in the newspaper business who are multi-millionaires due to family blood and the systematic destruction of local mackerel wrappers. Newspapers with little or no debt are just fine, but the entire point of any McDaffy paper, including the 2006 purchase of KR, is to load it up with debt and loot the balance sheet for the family.


Piss on em.

By: rogerfreberg on 3/9/09

oooou…. Normally we don't get our yearly subscription bill until April… but this year they wanted it two months early… ha! maybe, I should have held off paying!


Well… the absolute cost of a newspaper is really marginal. Relative to other costs, newspapers are cheap; however, people only consider it 'expensive' relative to what you get… and it's the same way nationally.


Newspapers have forgotten that a large part of their business is 'entertainment.' Journalists and schools of Journalism are dying and rightfully so.


I will miss having them as packing paper… but I can now grab new times to pack things… and it's free.

By: Afriendindeed on 3/9/09

Tribune needs to sell off Sun-Bulletin and Cambrian — or at least the building they're in and bring everything into the main office. Then they're got to fire off their top editors — way to overpaid. Promote local boy Bill Morem to be Editor and have him win back community support. Reporters like Sneed and Pemberton are living on borrowed time; good guys but not needed in a lean Trib. They have to start charging for online access, even if it's only $10 a month. If not, they're doomed. Too bad because we really do need them.

By: Bluebird on 3/9/09

To JesseJames

Ditto or as the Tribune says "Recommend"

By: Joe on 3/9/09

Nothing is 'local' anymore. Everything comes from somewhere and everything is owned by someone somewhere else.


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By: JesseJames on 3/9/09

As an aside every time I've been involved with a story and the Tribune, the Tribune has managed to fabricate the facts. Whether it's a soccer game and the score is wrong to not covering a soccer match at all. Or a business write up where the owner's name is wrong, the business name is misspelled and the address is a different business.


This is the quality of news that the TT puts out and has been putting out for as long as I can remember checking up on it. It's not a small wonder that they are going belly up.


The company also outsourced their customer service. That is to say a local paper… a news outlet for local news… outsourced their customer support. Wouldn't that be the people who would be answering local questions?


What do I know, I'm not a paper expert, I just make websites.


And if this isn't a valid news source, why are there people reading it? (Including you SLOCommunityMember)

By: SLOCommunityMember on 3/9/09

Get your facts straight and get some valid sources before shooting off out the mouth about stories you don't know. You will never be a valid news source. While the Tribune is financially hurting like every other business on the Central Coast and while the newspaper industry is moving into a new realm of news coverage, you will NEVER be considered a TRUE NEWS OUTLET.

By: Newsome on 3/9/09

Paperboy: The fact that the Trib can't compete does not mean the field is wide open, in fact just the opposite. The Trib can't compete because people don't buy paper newspapers anymore, therefore advertisers spend less. Also, the tanked economy means no one is buying ad space. The fact that the Trib can't compete is indicative of the fact that newspapers can't compete. The hypothetical millionaires will remain millionaires longer if they don't rise to your challenge to compete in an industry that is dying.


Who CAN compete is lean mean internet based local news purveyors. Anybody think of a company like that?


By: paperboy on 3/9/09

It would be a terrible blow if the Tribune were closed.

The mucky-mucks at the Tribune are making way too much money and bringing down the whole organization to feed their salaries.

I heard the Tribune sold the Sun Bulletin building in Morro Bay, that's a community newspaper that's been around for more than 70 years that the corporate big wigs at the Tribune have given a slow and painful death.

Any millionaires out there who want to fill the void? Now would be the time to start a new daily in the county. The Tribune can't compete.


By: shingh on 3/9/09

This is not all of it they told everyone as well no more matching to the 401K, pay reductions if we want to stay on 3% to 10% reduction in pay and reduced hours but more work so go figure reduce pay more hours, no retirement, then told cash your checks as soon as you get them the stock if falling and the bank will not loan anymore $$ it finally may be over for the TT

By: rack-n-blurb on 3/9/09

The 70% drop is misleading. Look further back and you will see the stock used to sell for over $70 per share. $70 to $.41 Ouch!


I'm not sure the Tribune itself can declare bankruptcy. McClatchy would have to.


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