© Drew Angerer/Getty Images News/Getty ImagesCopy of the New York Daily News at a newsstand
Even the ax men are getting axed at Tribune Publishing.
The struggling newspaper giant's new boss has unleashed a bloodbath in the executive ranks — and casualties include a former
New York Daily News publisher who himself had halved the paper's staff in a brutal, one-day bloodbath in 2018,
The Post has learned.
Former financial chief Terry Jimenez — who was promoted on Monday to replace Tim Knight as chief executive of the owner of papers including the
Daily News, the
Chicago Tribune and the
Baltimore Sun — has
swiftly executed a series of cuts that wiped out at least a half-dozen executives with the rank of vice president or higher, sources close to the company said.
Among the highest-ranking executives to get fired was Grant Whitmore, the chief digital operations officer and former publisher of the
Daily News. He did not return calls or emails.
Whitmore had been the executive charged with carrying out Knight's directive to chop half of the editorial staff in a brutal, one-day bloodbath in July 2018. Only 40 full-time editorial staffers remained after those cuts. Tribune had
purchased the money-losing Daily News for only $1 in 2017 and assumed its pension liabilities.
The cuts, which follow an all-hands meeting in Chicago earlier this week, have also claimed 13-year veteran Susan Jacobs, the SVP of sales and strategy; Mark Rose, VP of strategy marketing; Robin Gruen, VP of creative and strategy; and Chris Duplex, VP of business optimization.
The cuts are not part of the
voluntary buyouts that Tribune announced for staffers with at least eight years of experience on Jan. 13. Non-union staffers had already exited on Jan. 31. The deadline to apply for staffers who are members of the News Guild was Monday. The last day for most of those staffers will be Friday.
There is no official tally on how many are exiting yet as part of that offer, but insiders are saying that up to 10 percent of the reporters in some newsrooms will take buyouts.
The Chicago Tribune is the flagship. The other papers in the portfolio include the
Baltimore Sun, Capitol Gazette, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida's
Sun-Sentinel, Virginia's
Daily Press and the
Virginian-Pilot.The Morning Call's editor-in-chief for the past 18 months, Terry Rang, announced on Jan. 30 that she is exiting as well.
At the
Chicago Tribune, renowned music critic Greg Kot said he is leaving after a 40-year career. Higher education reporter Dawn Rhodes is also exiting after 10 years.
The cuts are believed to be the result of pressure from Alden Global Management, the hedge fund headed by Heath Freeman that emerged as Tribune's single largest shareholder in November with 32 percent of the common stock.Knight had unveiled the voluntary buyouts on Jan. 13 and sources said he was resisting the push to make deeper cuts. He is exiting at the end of the month.
Alden placed two non-media executives on the board of directors in early December although they pledged to not buy any more stock until after June 30, 2020.
Alden is famous for deep cuts to newsrooms in papers it owns through its Digital First Media/Media News Group holdings, which include the
Denver Post, the
Boston Herald, the
San José Mercury News and the
Orange County Register. Often it buys the paper, cuts staff and sells the real estate holdings, prompting some to label it a "strip miner" of local newspapers.Meanwhile, a blistering rebuke to Tribune management was issued Thursday jointly by five different News Guild chapters.
"When Trib Pub talks about streamlining they mean cutting jobs for the people who put together the newspaper every day," the Guild statement said.
"They mean less investment in newsrooms and the communities those newsrooms serve."Jimenez, who was in Miami over the weekend for the Super Bowl prior to unleashing this week's bloodbath, had not returned several e-mails seeking comment. A company spokesperson also did not return several e-mails seeking comment.
Comment: It seems 'greed' is more important than 'read' - especially if the news product is a cookie cutter version of MSM and rising executives are eating into profits. Conglomerate news organizations are foremost a business, with service to the public a distant second.