Wehco Media Inc. of Little Rock laid off 86 employees Tuesday afternoon, including some 40 at its Arkansas newspapers. The downsizing was one of several over the past decade, and executives called it an “economic necessity” in a continuing era of decreased daily print advertising.
The cuts included 27 workers at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Wehco’s flagship, including seven in the newsroom in Little Rock and eight employees at the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The layoffs also touched Wehco’s properties across Arkansas, but the company declined to break down the numbers for its smaller properties, which include the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record, the Banner News of Magnolia, the Camden News, the El Dorado News-Times and the Texarkana Gazette. The reduction affected 5.6 percent of Wehco’s newspaper employees, the company confirmed.
“We’re doing what other newspapers have done, and it’s an old story,” said Lynn Hamilton, president and general manager of the Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock. “Responding to economic conditions, we’ve terminated 27 people. Because of the continued downturn in advertising, it was a necessity to remain moderately profitable.”
Hamilton said that since the paper became the Democrat-Gazette in 1991, it has been profitable has remained so by diligent cost controls. “We’ve made small changes in those years, but we recognize that they are dramatic for the employees involved,” Hamilton continued. “It’s a terribly sad process, but it’s a necessary one. We see it as a long-term process of finding a newspaper that fits into the digital world.”
The Little Rock cuts included seven jobs in circulation and slightly smaller numbers in advertising, administration and production. “We look at noncritical positions and do it based on merit when multiple people are in the same job. It’s based on performance, and we try to keep the most productive employees.”
Hamilton rejected speculation that individual employees’ health costs or other factors may have weighed into decisions. “Absolutely not,” he said. “I have no clue even as to what those costs would be. I know who the 27 people are, of course, but I don’t want to name specific employees.” Though the paper has had small circulation declines, print advertising struggles were the main factor, Hamilton said.
Nat Lea, president and CEO of Wehco Media, said layoffs throughout the chain fell heavily on its biggest properties, the Democrat-Gazette and the Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee.
“I’m sure you’re aware of advertising trends,” Lea told Arkansas Business. “I saw a newspaper industry graph in the Wall Street Journal that charted advertising revenue declines since 2007, annual decreases in revenue for the past 10 years. We’ve been able to raise subscription prices to offset some of the declines, but this was simply a matter of needing to adjust the papers to the economic environment.”
Wehco, a private company, doesn’t release its financial results, but as Max Brantley noted in Arkansas Times, its newsroom of near 250 employees has shrunk to around 100.
Lea said the company would continue to make whatever moves are necessary to keep its newspapers sustainable, and said that company policy requires each of its units to be profitable. He also said that readers shouldn’t feel much impact from the cuts, which do not affect the company’s cable TV and internet provider operation.
Sign up for Daily E-news
