Boston Globe cuts jobs in newsroom, elsewhere

BOSTON, US: The Boston Globe has offered buyouts to 43 employees, including 20 in the newsroom, in the face of "challenging times for our industry."

An article appearing Monday in the Globe, a unit of the New York Times Co, said that 10 other employees, not in the newsroom, were laid off.

"The Globe still has by far the largest newsroom in New England, and it continues to deliver groundbreaking, award-winning journalism across all media platforms," publisher Christopher Mayer said in a memo to staff and published in the daily.

"That said, these continue to be challenging times for our industry and our business. We face rapid change in how readers get their information and how advertisers communicate their messages. That requires us to make tough choices along the way about how to allocate our resources."

Mayer added that the move "is part of a program to rebalance the business and will allow us to reallocate resources toward the investments we need as we innovate and introduce new products."

The company did not indicate how much it hopes to save with the job reductions or how many were likely to access the buyouts. The Globe has a total staff of 1881.

The New York Times Co, which reports earnings on Thursday, said in April its first-quarter profit jumped sevenfold, boosted largely by the sale of its regional newspapers and shares in a New England sports group.

Source: AFP via I-Net Bridge