Cuts are coming to The Plain Dealer, Ohio’s largest newspaper.
George Rodrigue, its president and editor, announced this week that 29 positions could be gone as soon as April 2019.
Advance Publications owns the paper. Copy editors, designers, and illustrators are among the positions to be outsourced under a new "centralized production system."
Though there will be no change in circulation, some employees are concerned what may be next.
“Losing all of this institutional knowledge here of people who have covered this area so long,” reporter Ginger Christ said. “They’re the people writing the headlines and they’re the people laying out the pages, deciding which stories end up in the paper.”
Christ believes the move not only weakens quality, but also their union.
“What that says about what they’re going to do with the rest of the guild and how much they even value local journalism,” she said.
Rodrigue claims technological improvements will help them maintain quality at a lower cost, though it is no secret times are tough for newspapers.
The Pew Research Center points out ground has been lost to social media, as circulation, staff sizes, and salaries have all declined in recent years.
Yet the need for accurate information has arguably never been higher.
“People deserve a good newspaper and we want readers to have something of quality,” Christ said. “It’s just increasingly hard to do that when the company keeps slashing jobs.”
Rodrigue said the paper will create new positions through its transition and staff members losing jobs can apply.