2/28/2024 0 Comments Akron beacon journal newsIt was where the fabled Knight Newspapers chain began, and it has won four Pulitzer Prizes. Once widely regarded as Ohio’s best newspaper, the Beacon Journal has a storied history. The Dallas Morning News and Cleveland Plain Dealer both announced buyout programs in August, while the Springfield (Mass.) Republican said this week that it would lay off 44 part-time employees. The paper is hardly the only one shedding staff in the waning days of the summer. Its subhed, like something out of a journalism horror movie, said it all: “Dropping profits spur new owner to lay off quarter of newsroom.” The story was published on the front of the business section. The newsroom layoffs - including eleven reporters, eight copy editors, three management-level editors, and four photographers - were part of a company-wide restructuring, Moss said, adding that “‘There could be the need for further reductions’ in the newsroom if revenue does not improve,” as the Beacon Journal reported the next day. A company spokeswoman put the paper’s profit margins “in the low double digits.” That would mean that the Beacon’s margins were better than 20 percent four years ago. Moss told the staff the news last Tuesday, saying that costs needed to be aligned with revenue and that advertisers have “cut back significantly and impacted our financial health.” According to Moss, the newspaper’s profits have fallen some 50 percent over the past four years. Very discouraging.”Įthridge will be one of 39 newsroom employees to lose their jobs. “Hard-charging reporter, and she’s just had it. Great writer,” veteran columnist Bob Dyer says of Ethridge. “Part of me wanted to stay and fight the good fight,” she says, but “another part of me just said, ‘You know what, maybe it’s just time to move on.’” It’s really devastating.”Īnd so Ethridge is taking a voluntary layoff (thus saving someone else’s job) and will move on, “telling people what they need to know” through freelance work, perhaps, at magazines or other newspapers. “It’s a very surreal atmosphere, ‘cause everything’s in flux and everybody’s upset. “You feel it already - you feel the complete vibe changing in the newsroom,” says Ethridge, a business columnist. “We were already to my mind short-staffed to begin with, and now it’s going to be even tougher.” “If you cut a quarter of the newsgathering staff and tell the others that remain that you may cut again, how can you possibly motivate people to do their jobs to the best of their abilities?” she asks. And so when she landed a reporting job at the Beacon in 1988, Ethridge says, “I was thrilled.”īut the deep cuts in the Beacon Journal’s newsroom announced last week - one-fourth will be laid off between now and October - have hit Ethridge hard. Her brother was managing editor of Knight Ridder’s Charlotte Observer for much of the 1980s. "We greatly appreciate the work of the FBI and law enforcement locally and around our state.Mary Ethridge grew up with Knight Ridder, and with the Akron Beacon Journal, where her father was editor. "Safety is of paramount importance to Akron Public Schools," the email read. A combination of local law enforcement agencies and the FBI investigated the threat and found it to be unsubstantiated. The threat was made against "American school buildings," the email explained. Springfield police: Shooting that left 16-year-old critically injured was an accident Schools will be in session Monday with an increased security presence, said Mark Williams, director of marketing communications at APS. News reports in Texas reported that schools received a similar threat on Friday.Īs a precaution, all staff and families were notified of the widespread threat. The threats claimed to be a "Russian terrorist," according to emails sent from school superintendents in Wayne County to parents. A threat made to schools around Ohio, including those in Akron and Wayne County, was deemed not credible by law enforcement agencies, according to an email from Akron Public Schools that was signed by Superintendent Michael Robinson.
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