Media: GateHouse slashing 130 jobs in Massachusetts
GateHouse Media, the company that owns the Journal Star and most of the daily and weekly newspapers in this part of Illinois, fired 130 employees last month, according Massachusetts’ Department of Labor.
GateHouse Media Inc., which owns the Quincy newspaper, said in late July it had entered into a multiyear agreement with The Boston Globe to print the Ledger and its Brockton daily, The Enterprise.
Last month, as the printing arrangement launched, the Ledger laid off 21 full-time workers – nine pressmen and a dozen other production workers. The other 109 workers were part timers, most of whom worked as few as four hours per week, stuffing inserts into papers.
[snip]
Kirk A. Davis, chief executive of GateHouse Media New England and the Ledger’s publisher, did not return calls seeking comment. Francie Nagy, a spokeswoman for New York-based GateHouse Media, declined to comment.
The layoffs come as the newspaper industry contends with revenue and circulation declines. GateHouse Media New England has funneled more resources toward its Web operations and, this week, said it was expanding its collection of community-centric websites to cover nearly 160 eastern Massachusetts cities.
This is NOT a case of moving the product from the printed page to the Web. This is a case of a company outsourcing its printing operation somewhere else. The expansion of its “collection of community-centric Websites” is a different issue, and its mention in this article confuses the issue.
GateHouse is not likely to try to do the same here, simply because the PJS has a new printing press, and is more likely to move printing operations here and close them at other GateHouse newspapers.
Hat tip: Turner Report.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
Just a note, the Ledger laid off around 21 full time employees, as did the Enterprise… around 50-60 full-time dedicated employees in all, most of whom were members of the pressmans union. The rest were part-timers in varying degrees. The article is misleading in that 109 employees were part-timers, and that they all came from the Ledger.
This layoff had a huge impact on both newspapers, both communites, and all employees. It is disheartening to see the company choosing not to invest money into our own print production facility, but rather choose to outsource YET ANOTHER department … to the competition, no less… in order to save a few bucks. (Granted, it’s a lot of bucks, but the entire project does not sit well with most of us employees of The Enterprise and Ledger.)