Tribune Publishing took a step further on Wednesday amid the ongoing economic strain of the coronavirus pandemic by closing the newsrooms of several of its media outlets, including the Daily News in New York City.
The offices of two Maryland newspapers, the Capital Gazette, site of a mass shooting in 2018 in Annapolis, and the Carroll County Times, as well as the Orland Sentinel in Florida, were also closed, the company confirmed. The newspapers will continue to publish, but it was unclear whether employees could return to physical offices. Tribune did not announce any future leasing plans.
The Daily News once recorded the largest circulation of any newspaper in the country, but has struggled for years. In 2017, it was purchased by the company that would become known as Tribune Publishing for $ 1. The newsroom’s staff was also cut in half in 2018 and its editor-in-chief, Jim Rich, was fired.
The Daily News’ headquarters in Lower Manhattan are closed for daily operations, but workers have until Oct. 30 to collect property from the building.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we do not expect to have employees who can work remotely return for the rest of the year and into 2021,” said Max Reinsdorf, a spokesman for Tribune Publishing. “With no clear path forward in terms of returning to work, and because the company is assessing its real estate in light of health and economic conditions brought on by the pandemic, we have made the difficult decision to close the office permanently.”
The move by Tribune, which publishes newspapers in several cities, comes as the local newspaper sector struggles to stay afloat. The struggle for survival has become even more intense during the pandemic and has resulted in increased redundancies.
In recent years, the sector has been struggling with acquisitions and consolidations by financial companies looking to cut costs, generate more revenue and strengthen digital distribution and content. The private equity firm Alden Global Capital has a stake in Tribune Publishing.
Even as readers and viewers search for local news at the time of the pandemic, larger audiences have not made up for loss of advertising, which has led to Google and Facebook. Gone are the revenue-generating ads of old, as consumers now turn online to search for local services.
To combat the revenue, Google has invested $ 300 million to support local journalism. and Facebook has invested roughly $ 400 million in local news through assistance and the purchase of advertising space from news outlets. But the relief is not enough to make the sector good.
Tribune had “permanently dismissed” office space in Chicago and Los Angeles in the first quarter of this year, according to documents submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission last week.
Tribune began withholding payments from April, May and June for rent at a “majority of its facilities and requested rent.” By June 28, it had reached deals to terminate four additional leases, and other leases are still being negotiated, according to the submission.
The pandemic has existing problems within the troubled industry and forced companies to cut costs wherever they can. In addition to layoffs and cuts, companies are re-evaluating expensive leases for office space that are vacant when workers work from home indefinitely.
In the retail trade, brick-and-mortar stores have long had to contend with increased competition from online shopping, and some recently announced permanent closure of stores. As coronavirus continues to close with non-essential businesses, several stores, restaurants and local business locations have closed permanently.
For local newspapers, pressure from the pandemic combined with the increased pressure to digital distribution and the ability to work remotely without expensive leases could signal the end of their traditional newsrooms.
