Media Meltdown Continues: Gannett/USA Today to Furlough Workers

As reported by another outfit in freefall, the New York Times. How fitting.

The Gannett Company, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, said on Wednesday that it would force thousands of its employees to take a week off without pay in an effort to avoid layoffs.

Gannett, which owns 85 daily newspapers across the United States including its flagship USA Today, said it could not say exactly how many people would be required to take time off, or how much money the company would save. But it said it would require unpaid leave for most of its 31,000 employees in this country.

Also on Wednesday, USA Today notified its staff of a one-year pay freeze for all employees.

“Most of our U.S. employees — including myself and all other top executives — will be furloughed for the equivalent of one week in the first quarter,” Craig A. Dubow, the chairman, president and chief executive, wrote in a memorandum to employees.

“We sincerely hope this minimizes the need for any layoffs going forward,” he added.

The company cannot impose the measure unilaterally on employees covered by a union contract, but Mr. Dubow said Gannett was asking unions to participate voluntarily. Tara Connell, a company spokeswoman, said about 12 percent of Gannett’s domestic employees were unionized.

With the newspaper industry in increasingly dire financial straits, Gannett’s mandatory week off takes its place in a growing list of grave moves like widespread layoffs, the newspapers in Detroit halting home delivery four days of the week, the bankruptcy filing of the Tribune Company and warnings from the owners of The Rocky Mountain News and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer that those papers could shut down.

Maybe they can start today, although the thought of them skipping a week of slobbering over the Obama inaugural probably never entered their minds.

My advice to most of them is to begin seeking a new career path. Your days are numbered.