'NYT' to axe 12 newsroom jobs now, management cuts next year

Editor and Publisher - Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, announced in a staff memo today that "there are going to be layoffs in the newsroom, for the first time in recent memory." He added that a "hiring freeze" will continue, with open positions filled internally, and next year "we also expect to eliminate a few management jobs in administrative areas."

For now, a dozen "support" workers will be getting the axe, but Keller said the paper has still been able "to avoid the kind of drastic staff cutbacks other news organizations have endured."

Keller noted, "As we approach 2008, it is clear that the newsroom is going to have to do even more to tighten spending, and to help the publisher and the Times Company meet the difficult financial challenges facing our industry. While we are committed to retaining our competitive muscle, we will be facing some tough choices about where to save ...

"Today we notified the Newspaper Guild that about a dozen support positions within the newspaper are being eliminated. We will, for example, be closing the Recording Room as well as trimming a number of clerical and secretarial jobs. The people in those jobs will receive the severance they are entitled under the Guild contract ...

"As we move into 2008, we will be rethinking coverage priorities and how we use our space and our people, but always in ways that preserve what The Times does best. In the future, as in the past few months while these matters were under review, we have worked closely with our partners on the business side, with a single shared ambition: to seek cutbacks and reductions that are as strategically focused as possible, and do nothing to damage our core journalism."