Economy & Economic Development  November 4, 2016

Layoffs hitting Boulder Valley, NoCo newspapers

BOULDER — The most recent wave of job cuts to hit newspapers nationally has struck a pair of local news organizations over the past two weeks as well.

Boulder-based Prairie Mountain Publishing — which publishes the Boulder Daily Camera, Longmont Times-Call, Loveland Reporter-Herald and several other smaller newspapers around the state — announced Thursday that the company laid off nine employees this week.

That announcement came roughly one week after five employees were laid off at the Fort Collins Coloradoan as part of that paper’s parent company, Gannett, cutting 2 percent of its workforce nationwide.

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Prairie Mountain cut four people in finance and five in advertising, editorial and photography. Two of those positions came out of the newsroom at the Daily Camera and two more from the newsroom at the Reporter-Herald. Publisher Al Manzi confirmed Friday that one contract position was also cut in addition to the layoffs, and that the company has multiple open positions that it is determining whether to fill.

Manzi said the finance cuts came as Prairie Mountain owner Digital First Media Group centralizes its finance work at a shared services center in Colorado Springs. He cited changing business conditions as the reason for the balance of the cuts.

Prairie Mountain’s local papers also include the Broomfield Enterprise, Estes Park Trail-Gazette and Colorado Hometown Weekly. Manzi said the company has no plans to consolidate publications “in any way.”

Coloradoan executive editor Lauren Gustus confirmed her paper’s layoffs in a post on Coloradoan.com on Friday. The cuts came in editorial, advertising, pre-press and events.

Gustus wrote that the Coloradoan is nixing the Xplore outdoors section in its Sunday paper, replacing it with more space for the paper’s standalone Business and Viewpoints sections. Outdoors coverage will be rolled into the sports section.

“Digital revenues are not equal to those in print, even though more people are reading us online than ever before,” Gustus wrote, summing up the conundrum faced by most newspapers.

BOULDER — The most recent wave of job cuts to hit newspapers nationally has struck a pair of local news organizations over the past two weeks as well.

Boulder-based Prairie Mountain Publishing — which publishes the Boulder Daily Camera, Longmont Times-Call, Loveland Reporter-Herald and several other smaller newspapers around the state — announced Thursday that the company laid off nine employees this week.

That announcement came roughly one week after five employees were laid off at the Fort Collins Coloradoan as part of that paper’s parent company, Gannett, cutting 2 percent of its workforce nationwide.

Prairie Mountain cut four people in finance and five…

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