In a Journal story published Tuesday, Sutton said the paper remains profitable, and he vowed, “We’re still going to produce a quality newspaper seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, and we’re going to continue to invest in projo.com. We’re not deviating from our mission, our values or our objective.”
If the cuts proceed as planned, Sutton said, the ProJo will maintain a staff of more than 200 news and editorial employees, and more than 100 in advertising. (On the news side, the number likely includes managers.)
For those who want to look for a silver lining, the local cuts could be smaller — five percent than those being implemented (14 percent) at other Belo newspapers, since the paper says it would settle for just 35 voluntary departures. And regardless of what happens, the Journal will remain Rhode Island’s most important news organization.
Yet the continued watering down of a once-vital civic institution, which has played a lead role over the years in helping to root out wrongdoing by public officials, has become clear to even the most casual readers.
On Monday, the New York Times reported that California-based Verve Wireless, which provides mobile versions via cell phone of 4000 newspapers, from 140 publishers, “believes it can save the dying local newspaper by making it mobile.”
So far, however, even though the combined print and Web circulation of most newspapers equals the total of the bygone print-only era, the industry has yet to come up with a new economic model for sustaining meaningful reporting into the future.
Who’s staying, who’s going?
The extreme state of the situation can be seen in how Belo is even considering selling the Journal’s distinctive downtown headquarters on Fountain Street, where the newspaper has been housed since the 1930s — not necessarily a bright prospect given Rhode Island’s slumping housing market.
Here’s a rundown on a few ProJo senior staffers and their thoughts regarding the buyout.
“I think it will have a huge effect if many people take it,” says medical reporter Felice Freyer. “We’re going to lose a good percentage of the people who gather the news, who report it, and edit it.” Freyer says she can’t possibly consider the buyout, because she can’t afford to leave, and that a lot of people who might otherwise take it are unlikely to do so because of a lack of other job opportunities.
A source indicates that Katherine Gregg, the Journal’s longtime State House bureau chief, will not consider the buyout.
“You’ve got to think about it given the state of the industry,” says veteran political reporter Scott MacKay. “It’s something a lot of veteran reporters are going to have to think seriously about.”
Metro columnist Bob Kerr, 63, says he’d like to work indefinitely, but, “I don’t want to have to be told, ‘If you stay, then some promising young reporter has to go.’ I hope it doesn’t come to that yet.”
Reporter John Hill, president of the Prov-idence Newspaper Guild (who is not eligible for the buyout), says the latest cuts, due to be implemented September 12, are different from previous reductions at the ProJo.
“The Providence Journal that hired me, that you and I have been reading, will cease to exist that day,” he says, giving rise to a news and information company. “I think there will be some really marked differences in the way the paper looks and the way it covers Rhode Island,” he says.
