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The Long Beach Press-Telegram staff will be protesting at the Long Beach City Council tonight at 5 after numerous job cuts from the consolidation of the paper with its sister publication, the Torrance Daily Breeze.
The Daily Breeze is a non-unionized newspaper, which means those who are sent from the Press-Telegram to the Daily Breeze will lose their union representation.
Mark Ficarra, the current publisher of the Daily Breeze, has taken over the roles of the previous Press-Telegram publisher, Dave Kuta. The job of former Press-Telegram Managing Editor John Futch was eliminated and will not be replaced.
"Our goal is to just stabilize what's going on," Ficarra said to the Daily Breeze. "We're really trying to generate a new business, a new model, to look at things differently."
Phillip Sanfield, the Daily Breeze editor, will now have editorial oversight over the Press-Telegram.
"We are in an incredibly difficult market right now," Sanfield said in an article by the Associated Press. "These are really good people on both sides, at the Breeze and the [Press-Telegram], but we are just going to have to make this work in a positive way."
MediaNews Group, which owns both publications under its subsidiary, the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, has planned to consolidate the two in order to cut costs. The corporation said it will cut to the serious decline in the newspaper industry, according to a Daily Breeze story.
MediaNews is a privately owned chain based in Denver that operates 57 daily newspapers, including The Denver Post, The Oakland Tribune, San Jose Mercury News and The Salt Lake City Tribune. MediaNews also owns Gazette Newspapers, which publishes two weekly newspapers and is based in Belmont Shore.
The Los Angeles Newspaper Group owns many newspapers in Greater Los Angeles, including the Los Angeles Daily News, San Bernardino Sun, Whittier Daily News, Pasadena Star-News and the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
According to Press-Telegram copy editor Austin Lewis, an alumnus from Cal State Long Beach and managing editor of the Daily Forty-Niner in 2005, there will be one group of copy editors and designers in Torrance who will work for both publications. Lewis also mentioned that "Thursday's working day for Friday's paper will be done out of the Daily Breeze."
The 21 copy editors and designers currently working at the Press-Telegram will be sent to interview at the Daily Breeze, where only 12 positions are available. Nine employees of the Press-Telegram are expected to lose their jobs.
"We're down to 10 news reporters now. We have a few sportswriters and only two in features," said Joe Segura, the head of the stewards and part of the Southern California Media Guild. Segura has been working for the Press-Telegram for 33 years, and was the editor in chief of the Daily Forty-Niner in spring 1974.
"One reporter is a city hall reporter. Then there's a cops reporter, and you have an education reporter," Segura said. "You have one covering the ports and you have one covering business and retail, and so that's five heavy-duty beats. So it gives you five other reporters to get things done in Long Beach and the other 19 communities [the Press-Telegram covers]."
The Press-Telegram covers 19 surrounding communities - other than Long Beach - including Bellflower, Downey, San Pedro, Los Alamitos, Lakewood, Cerritos, Compton, Artesia and Cypress.
"The math just doesn't add up," Segura said. "You lose quality when you're stretched that thin."
"We don't know where this is going to end," Segura said. "It's a slap in the face."
The Press-Telegram on Friday announced the widespread layoffs and outsourcing of the publication toward guild-represented workers in Long Beach. The Press-Telegram staff has expressed in an e-mail that its protest has come after a year of bargaining, adding it was unsuccessful because the company negotiator purposely stalled throughout the process.
According to an article from Editor & Publisher, both the Daily Breeze and the Press-Telegram will also have cuts to their websites. A five-person team will handle the websites of both papers, according to The Associated Press.
Before the announced layoffs, the Daily Breeze and the Press-Telegram had already been sharing content, such as photos and articles.
"We were sharing content, and all Southern California [MediaNews-owned] papers do that," said John Canalis, a 1992 Daily Forty-Niner editor in chief who now teaches part-time for the journalism department and is the assistant editorial pages editor at the Press-Telegram.
Patrick McKean, a journalism professor and adviser to the Viking newspaper at Long Beach City College, sent an e-mail to CSULB journalism students from the Daily Forty-Niner in hopes to gather support for the Press-Telegram staff during the strike.
McKean knows many former students who now work for the Press-Telegram who will be affected because of the loss of benefits, salary and jobs.
McKean said he feels consolidation of publications leads to less coverage for Long Beach.
"Long Beach is the 23rd biggest city in the U.S., and without a complete, full daily newspaper, it's not good for society," McKean said.
According to McKean, the situation is a tough one and he said he hopes it can be effective. He said that this situation will also make the public and city officials aware and the protest can't hurt. He said he hopes that the awareness of this situation will be important for journalists involved.
Kris Hanson, staff writer for the Press-Telegram, said he has watched the publication get smaller and "less significant." Being a 2001 journalism graduate from CSULB, Hanson said he feels that there is just no job security left and that it seems as if the parent company to the Press-Telegram doesn't care about Long Beach.
Hanson said that journalists are dedicated to the profession and that they are not in it for the money. He said they have the job because of a love for journalism and they feel that management doesn't feel that same way.
"The future of journalism is shaky," Hanson said.
Since MediaNews Group took over:
- The Torrance-based Daily Breeze is now in charge of P-T staffing strategy. - Ten reporters and five photographers remain on the staff to cover Long Beach and surrounding communities. - Copy editing and layout design responsibilities have gone to the Daily Breeze. - Publisher Dave Kuta and Managing Editor John Futch have been fired and will not be replaced.
(Information from the Press-Telegram)
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