Plainfielders won't read it in today's Courier or Ledger, but Gannett, the Courier's parent company, yesterday made a buyout offer to 160 employees at its newpapers statewide. (Read the AP story here.)
As well as the Courier News, other papers affected are the Home News Tribune, the Asbury Park Press and the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill.
Like other newspaper chains, Gannett has suffered declining ad sales and is trying to learn how to make its Internet presence generate more income.
I had reported earlier on rumors that the Courier and the Home News would merge and give up their print editions. Turned out not exactly so: they DID merge their websites, which went live couple of weeks ago, but still have separate print editions. Though if you check them carefully, a great deal of the material is recycled from one to another, and there is an awful lot of AP filler where once stories were actually written by reporters on the ground.
What suffers most here is local news. Notwithstanding that the administration of Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs seems constitutionally incapable of getting out even ONE press release a week, there is a dearth of information about Plainfield and Plainfield activities. Part of this, of course, is that volunteer-driven local organizations often do not think about publicizing their activities until the very last minute (this is an old, old, old problem).
What worries me about the buyout is that it is aimed at the more senior -- and experienced -- employees (who must have 15 years in to be eligible) and will deprive the Courier and the others of that institutional memory which guarantees that the papers are actually able to keep their fingers on the real pulse of the communities they cover.
Rough times all the way around.
Newsday: "Gannett offers buyouts to 160 NJ workers"
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