File Photo
Joshua Mamis
The dwindling band of survivors on the good ship New Haven Advocate were disheartened to learn Friday that their corporate parent is continuing to whittle away what remains of their staff.
The staff learned at a meeting that the alternative weekly’s parent — Tribune Co., owner of the Hartford Courant and Fox 61 — has eliminated three more positions. That means two graphic designers, including New Haven’s Chris Fasanella, are out of a job along with the paper’s publisher, Joshua Mamis.
Mamis came to New Haven in 1993 to edit the New Haven Advocate, when it was still independently owned. He oversaw countless award-winning investigative and news reporting projects and the dramatic expansion of the paper. He eventually rose to become publisher of the three remaining weeklies in the group, the Hartford and New Haven Advocates and the Fairfield County Weekly.
Mamis was unavailable for comment.
The financially wallowing Tribune Co. has gradually reduced the size of the Advocate’s staff over the last decade. In fact, the New Haven edition no longer has a staff reporter. Nor does the Fairfield edition.
Now the papers will no longer have their own publisher, either. Rather than replace Mamis, Tribune is having someone at its corporate Courant/Fox office in Hartford assume the responsibilities.
You wouldn’t know that from reading the memo Advocate staffers received from corporate management first announcing and “explaining” the layoffs, which were part of a larger wave of job eliminations throughout Tribune’s Connecticut media properties.
(Recently Tribune also eliminated the popular columns in the Courant written by staffers Rick Green, Helen Ubinas, and Susan Campbell. For background on Tribune’s gradual, ugly demise as a serious media company, click here and here.)
Read the latest memo for yourself, below. Any attempts at translation to English from the original Corporatese are welcome — post a comment.
To All CT1 Staff Members:
Today, we implemented some important changes within our Hartford newsroom and production operation designed to meet the financial challenges we are currently facing, while maintaining CT1 Media’s position as Connecticut¹s leading source of news and information across multiple platforms. These changes will allow us to deploy additional resources to areas of the most interest to our readers, viewers and advertisers local news coverage, investigative reporting and 24/7 digital access to breaking news.
As our market continues evolving at a rapid pace, our “digital first” strategy will keep us strong as we move into the future, and CT1 media — including The Hartford Courant, courant.com, Fox Connecticut and ctnow.com — will remain the leading generator of breaking and relevant news content in the state. We are committed to being Connecticut¹s leader in local and investigative news coverage and we will continue to evolve our digital platforms and products in the immediate future.
These changes will result in a reduction of some positions in the newsroom. While most of these reductions will occur on the news production and administrative side, some editorial positions will also be eliminated.
Other changes are a result of our on-going participation in Media on Demand (MoD), which provides fully edited and designed non-local news and features content for Tribune newspapers and websites. MoD will expand to take on copy-editing and page design for several newspapers including The Hartford Courant at a center based in the Chicago Tribune newsroom, where the content-sharing hub is located. This approach, already implemented at the Daily Press, will enable us to improve the efficiency of operations and position us to fulfill our local mission and to meet the challenges of the future.
Staff reductions are never easy. They are necessary, however, to ensure the financial strength of the organization going forward. None of these
reductions is a reflection on the work of the people affected, many of whom are longtime employees of The Hartford Courant and have made excellent contributions over the years.
Collectively, the changes we¹ve implemented will reduce expenses and position CT1 Media to capitalize on marketplace opportunities. We appreciate your continued support and efforts as we implement these changes.
Sincerely,
Rich
Rich Graziano
ceo, president & publisher hartford courant
general manager wtic/wcct
What the memo didn't mention was the nonsensicalness of transferring their IT operations from India to Orlando. I guess they think it's another cost-saing measure. Strange way to run a business.