Media General shows net profit in second quarter
Media General reported net income for the second quarter of 2009, and while the income number was modest, at $20.6 million for the quarter, it was a number in the black and not $532.2 million in the red like the second quarter of 2008 was for the media conglomerate. Continue reading “Media General shows net profit in second quarter” »
The morning paper revisited
Story by Chris Graham
“We’ve created a very strange situation for ourselves,” News Virginian editor and general manager Lee Wolverton said of the ongoing handwringing among us media moguls about what we need to do to get our industry back on track after a sustained period of losing print readers used to paying for the news to the Internet where people have come to expect information to be readily available for free. Continue reading “The morning paper revisited” »
Yep, even more bad news
Media General has cut 90 jobs from its flagship newspaper, the Times-Dispatch in Richmond, according to a story on the paper’s website Thursday.
Twenty-eight of the positions were in the newsroom, according to an Associated Press report. The rest were scattered throughout the production, circulation, marketing, business, advertising, operations, facilities, prepress design and targeted solutions departments. Continue reading “Yep, even more bad news” »
More bad newspaper news
The News Virginian has laid off a newsroom staffer as part of a workforce reduction implemented by two local Media General-owned newspapers, according to an online report in the Daily Progress.
The Progress eliminated a total of six positions, including four in its news department. Continue reading “More bad newspaper news” »
More bad news at Media General
More bad news on the news-media front. Media General announced last week that it is closing its Washington, D.C., news bureau on March 27.
“We very much regret having to take this step,” said Graham Woodlief, president of the Publishing Division at Media General, the parent company of The News Virginian in Waynesboro. Continue reading “More bad news at Media General” »
News Virginian latest to furlough employees
The tough times being faced in the news-media industry are now hitting home to Waynesboro.
The News Virginian announced in today’s edition that it will be implementing a series of unpaid furloughs for employees in line with a fulough program being implemented by its corporate parent, the Richmond-based Media General. Continue reading “News Virginian latest to furlough employees” »
News Leader cuts 15 positions
One blog is calling it the “biggest mass layoff in newspaper industry history,” and part of it is ongoing in the Valley.
The News Leader cut 15 job positions on Tuesday as part of a move initiated by its corporate parent Gannett Co. Inc. that will result in 10 percent of the Northern Virginia-based media company’s Community Publishing Division. Continue reading “News Leader cuts 15 positions” »
Progress, NV shift printing to new, more distant locations
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Media General apparently isn’t making enough money at The Daily Progress in Charlottesville to justify spending the “several million dollars of repairs, refurbishing and rewiring” needed to continue long-term operations at its printing plant on West Rio Road.
These can’t be good days at the Richmond-based Media General, the parent company of the Progress and the Waynesboro-based News Virginian, which has been under internal pressure to cut costs after a dissident shareholder group bought up a significant amount of Media General stock and forced its way into the family-owned company’s board of directors earlier this year. Continue reading “Progress, NV shift printing to new, more distant locations” »
Is $125K too much for a city manager?
The Local Beat column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
There has been some interesting discussion about how much outgoing Waynesboro city manager Doug Walker gets paid in the days since the announcement that Walker will be stepping down from his job effective June 30.
The focus of the talking has been that $125,000 a year is an awfully hefty sum for a city manager, considering that the average median income in the area is in the $30,000-a-year range.
I don’t know personally that one has to do with the other, but let’s go with the idea that we need to come up with some metric for comparing and contrasting the numbers so that we can get a sense of where things stand on this. Continue reading “Is $125K too much for a city manager?” »
