More cuts coming at The Buffalo News

• Share on
• 
• 
• 
• 

---

The Buffalo News is cutting its newsroom staff again and dropping content from The New York Times.

Management informed their newsroom staff of the moves at a meeting Thursday. No hard number is attached to the staff reductions, which would be effective in early November. Up to five cuts are likely. Buyouts will be offered and layoffs imposed if necessary. 

The newsroom staff is approximately 45. It’s down from a peak of over 200 in the 1980s. That number had shrunk to about 85 when Lee Enterprises bought The News five years ago. This time a year ago 10 jobs were cut, half of them vacant.

The News will stop publishing New York Times stories effective the first of the year. Times stories populated a significant portion of the paper’s front section, which focuses on national and international news. 

“We’re disappointed that we’ll have to say goodbye to four or five more newsroom colleagues later this fall, and we’re hopeful that we’ll have enough volunteers willing and ready to resign with contractual severance so we can avoid layoffs,” said Jon Harris, a reporter and president of the Buffalo Newspaper Guild.

“We continue to believe local news requires investment, and it’s abundantly clear that Lee Enterprises has no intention of investing resources into Buffalo, or any of its other markets. Endlessly cutting costs will not save local news, and we urge Lee to formulate a strategy that will allow The Buffalo News and its other properties to succeed in the future.”

News Editor Margaret Kenny Giancola did not respond to a request for comment.

---

---

Lee owns 72 daily newspapers. It is downsizing newsrooms at many of them. For example, the Richmond Times-Dispatch is shedding five reporter jobs.

The company has lost nearly $30 million during the first nine months of its current fiscal year. It carries $455 million in debt and didn’t make interest payments in March, April and May, according to SEC filings. 

The company’s stock price over the past year has dropped from a high of $18.05 last  Nov. 1 to a low of $3.86 on Aug. 12. It stood at $5.33 on Thursday. 

The latest developments at The News continue a string of bad news for local media.

Buffalo Toronto Public Media, formerly WNED and WBFO, lost $2 million in federal funding due to cuts enacted by Congress in July. 

Then, in August, Nexstar, the chain that owns WIVB, announced its purchase of Tegna, whose holdings include WGRZ, pending regulatory approval. That could result in at least a partial merger of the two newsrooms, meaning less competition, less variety of content and less choice for viewers.