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https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-chicago-tribune-buyouts-alden-20210622-ox7ev6nl6ze3lha562nwg2ny6a-story.html
Dozens in Chicago Tribune newsroom take buyouts.https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-chicago-tribune-buyouts-alden-20210622-ox7ev6nl6ze3lha562nwg2ny6a-story.html
Almost 40 journalists are leaving the Chicago Tribune’s newsroom as part of a voluntary buyout program announced late last month by Tribune Publishing.
The buyouts were offered to nonunion employees two days after hedge fund Alden Global Capital completed its $633 million acquisition of Tribune Publishing, the owner of the Chicago Tribune and other metropolitan daily newspapers. After negotiations with the Chicago Tribune Guild, the program was offered to the newsroom’s union employees.
More than a dozen nonunion editors and support staff in the Tribune’s newsroom took buyouts. Another 24 newsroom employees who are members of the guild applied for and were accepted for buyouts, according to Greg Pratt, a Tribune reporter and guild president.
He said applications by three other members were denied, and the union hopes the company reconsiders their applications. After the departures, the guild will represent more than 80 newsroom employees, Pratt said.
A spokeswoman for Tribune Publishing did not immediately return a call for comment.
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Among those who have announced their departures on social media and published farewell columns are columnists Mary Schmich, Dahleen Glanton, Steve Chapman, Heidi Stevens, Eric Zorn and John Kass. Sports columnist Phil Rosenthal also is leaving.
“We are sad to be losing outstanding journalists at the Chicago Tribune but we respect and honor those who are leaving,” Pratt said in an email. “It’s important to know that outstanding journalists are going to stick around, too, and we will continue doing vital work for our readers.”
Alden completed its purchase of Tribune Publishing on May 24, taking the Chicago-based newspaper chain private. The hedge fund immediately saddled the formerly debt-free Tribune Publishing with two loans totaling $278 million, removed CEO Terry Jimenez and installed Alden President Heath Freeman to lead the company.
A distressed-investment hedge fund with a reputation as one of the industry’s most aggressive cost-cutters, Alden has become the second-largest newspaper owner in the U.S. behind Gannett.
In an email to the newsroom last week, Chicago Tribune Editor-in-Chief Colin McMahon said the losses to the newsroom “will be a significant number of people and a tremendous loss of talent, passion and grit. … That said, this newsroom retains its own reserve of tremendous talent, passion and grit.”
“We’ve been fortunate over the last few years to bring in new faces with raw energy and fresh perspectives,” wrote McMahon, who also serves as chief content officer of Tribune Publishing. “We retain the capacity to be essential to our readers as they navigate their daily lives; decode the way our city, region and state work; and make decisions for themselves, their families and their communities. We remain committed to the twin principles of serving our audiences and delivering on mission.”
In addition to the Chicago Tribune, Tribune Publishing owns The Baltimore Sun; the Hartford Courant; the Orlando (Florida) Sentinel; the South Florida Sun Sentinel; the New York Daily News; the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland; The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania; the Daily Press in Newport News, Virginia; and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia.