Newsday yesterday dismissed 72 employees from across the newspaper and announced that 40 additional vacant jobs will be eliminated.
No "news gathering personnel" were affected by yesterday's announcement, according to a memo to employees from publisher Timothy P. Knight, issued yesterday afternoon. The move comes a month after the newsroom staff was reduced by 59 people, largely through buyouts.
"Today's changes are unfortunate, but necessary to position Newsday to pursue opportunities with confidence," Knight wrote. "I know this kind of change is not easy."
The cuts will include five editorial employees: two telephone operators and three editorial systems workers, according to Newsday editor John Mancini.
Knight said yesterday the newspaper also is outsourcing its mailroom operations.
Many of Newsday's city-based reporters have been transferred to its Melville headquarters. This week, the paper began moving all but one of its Queens-based reporters and other staff to either its Manhattan or Melville offices.
"It made more sense to put the people we have in New York together," Mancini said.
Advertising staff based in Queens will remain in the Kew Gardens office, Newsday spokeswoman Deidra Parrish Williams said.
Newsday's moves are part of a growing industry trend to trim staff and operations. Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune, owned by Newsday's parent company, Tribune Corp., said it was cutting 28 editorial jobs.
The cuts are coming as newspapers face "structural" changes in both advertising and readership, said Earl Wilkinson, executive director of the International Newspaper Marketing Association in Dallas. "These trends have been building over the last 10, 20, 30 years. All that's happening now is that we've reached a tipping point."
