Cleveland Plain Dealer lays off a slew of unionized reporters from what the Reverend Jesse Jackson calls its "lily White and re-segregated newsroom," the Guild, whose members just approved an extended union contract, saying the layoffs represent the loss of voices in the community.... Black leaders say such voices represent a dearth of Black reporters and editors, particularly since Cleveland is a largely Black major American city....More layoffs, mainly page designers and copy editors, are coming in May....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, has laid off 15 unionized newsroom employees, mainly reporters, and purportedly a few editors, a follow-up to management's announcement last month of the newsroom shakeup.
Exactly how many Blacks were let go remains a mystery, though few Blacks work in the Plain Dealer's newsroom anyway, a newsroom that serves, among others, the largely Black major American city of Cleveland, a city led by longtime mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor.
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| The Rev Jesse Jackson |
Research reveals that practically all of those laid off from the newsroom are White, aside from longtime reporter Janet Cho, a respected female journalist who is Asian- American.
Black leaders have said that the lack of diversity, via reporters and editors in particular, and as to its editorial board, remains an issue of concern and that it impacts the reporting of the news, particularly as it relates to what is really happening in the Black community relative to matters of public concern, from racism to negative coverage of Black elected officials.
Three employees from the page production unit, 29 of them to be laid off in May, will be shifted to the newsroom, making the exit of newsroom employees a net of 12 layoffs, newspaper officials said last week.
The replaced page production unit, mainly page designers and copy editors, will be centralized out of the state with the union jobs outsourced from the Plain Dealer's parent company of Advance Publications, which oversees them now, to its subsidiary company of Advance Local, a move that has upset the Guild, a union that represents 68 Plain Dealer employees, including reporters, copy editors, designers, photographers, and illustrators.
Editor since January of 2015 following a shake-up and mass layoffs of more than 50 employees in 2013, including reporters, photojournalists, and columnists, George Rodrigue has said that in spite of the layoffs "the Plain Dealer will remain a local institution."
Rodrigue blames the layoffs on declining revenue, growing social media and digital news competition, increased operating costs, and a reduced readership, among other assertions.
Guild unit chair Ginger Christ said in a statement that the Plain Dealer will soon be reduced to 33 unionized journalists from 340 some twenty- years-ago.
Company officials have invited the impacted employees to apply for lower-paying, non-union jobs they qualify for at Cleveland.com, which is owned by Advance Ohio, and led by Chris Quinn, the digital content editor and Cleveland.com president.
The replaced page production unit, mainly page designers and copy editors, will be centralized out of the state with the union jobs outsourced from the Plain Dealer's parent company of Advance Publications, which oversees them now, to its subsidiary company of Advance Local, a move that has upset the Guild, a union that represents 68 Plain Dealer employees, including reporters, copy editors, designers, photographers, and illustrators.
Editor since January of 2015 following a shake-up and mass layoffs of more than 50 employees in 2013, including reporters, photojournalists, and columnists, George Rodrigue has said that in spite of the layoffs "the Plain Dealer will remain a local institution."
Rodrigue blames the layoffs on declining revenue, growing social media and digital news competition, increased operating costs, and a reduced readership, among other assertions.
The Guild, which does not buy his assertions, said in a statement that "as the journalists who produce Cleveland’s newspaper, we’re asking for your help, [and ] we are losing experienced reporters and fear that it is only the beginning."
The layoffs' decision, which impacts more that a third of the newspaper's unionized staff, caps weeks of management-union negotiations since February that reached an impasse with the union contract expiring in February, union members voting last week to extend the union contract to 2020.Guild unit chair Ginger Christ said in a statement that the Plain Dealer will soon be reduced to 33 unionized journalists from 340 some twenty- years-ago.
Company officials have invited the impacted employees to apply for lower-paying, non-union jobs they qualify for at Cleveland.com, which is owned by Advance Ohio, and led by Chris Quinn, the digital content editor and Cleveland.com president.
The Guild had accused hierarchical decision makers at the Plain Dealer of trading local news for a centralized unit removed from the community, and of ignoring the union's proposal for more subscribers to reduce the number of layoffs, and strategies for keeping the news centrally located.
Founded in 1872, the Plain Dealer has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Ohio, and had roughly 250,000 daily readers and 790,000 readers on Sundays before it switched to a four-day delivery newspaper in 2015, including Sundays.
Two years earlier, in 2013, the newspaper reported daily readership of 543,110 and a Sunday's readership of 858,376, a drop of nearly 50 percent of daily readers from 2013 to 2015 when it began under the leadership of Rodrigue with a reduced delivery week, and more than 50 fewer employees.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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