Star-Ledger will furlough staff, cut salaries

NJ Advance Media, which operates the Star-Ledger, NJ.com and three other newspapers, has announced that it will furlough staff, reduce most employee salaries through the end of the year, and suspend 401(k) contributions.

The move comes just a week after the company began beseeching readers to support them through $10-per-month subscriptions.

In their announcement, NJ Advance Media made it clear that other newspaper were first to cut their staff.

“The company did not rush into these decisions, like so many others have,” NJ Advance media president Steve Alesssi told NJ.com.  “Ultimately, there is no ideal solution for situations like this.”

The NJ.com report cited layoff and furloughs at their main competitor, Gannett.

Alessi attributed the recent decision to loss of revenues stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, although the newspapers financial and quality decline has been brewing for the last fifteen years.

The newsroom staff is now about one-third of the size it was in 2005, when the Star-Ledger won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of New Jersey politics.  Over the last four years, print circulation is down about 70%.

The report does not mention that the owner of NJ Advance Media, Advance Publications,  is the 47th largest privately-held company in the United States.  Conde Nast, the Discovery Channel, Reddit, and dozens of daily newspapers across the nation are just part of their portfolio.  Forbes estimates Advance’s annual revenue to be $6.25 billion.

It also does not reference two non-journalism investments the parent company made in March: an all-cash deal to buy the Beijing-based Ironman group for $730 million, and a $200 million investment in Scopely, a “fast-growing mobile games space”