“One of the biggest one-time hits we’ve heard about“:
To cut costs and try to adapt to a changing media marketplace, The Chronicle will trim 25 percent of its newsroom staff by the end of the summer.
“This is one of the biggest one-time hits we’ve heard about anywhere in the country,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, in Washington.
Eighty reporters, photographers, copy editors and others, as well as 20 employees in management positions are expected to be laid off by end of the summer. Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega said Friday that voluntary buyouts are likely to be offered.
Vega declined to say whether the paper is continuing to lose $1 million a week, as Hearst attorney Daniel Wall stated in court in November during a hearing on an antitrust suit filed by San Francisco businessman Clint Reilly.