Beacon Journal lays off 40

AKRON (AP) -- The Akron Beacon Journal laid off 40 newsroom employees -- 25 percent of that staff -- Tuesday and will cut jobs in all of its divisions over the next three weeks, citing a decline in revenue.
The cuts include 29 full-time workers and leave the newsroom with 120 employees. Reporters, managers, photographers, copy editors, clerks and a librarian were among those laid off, said Rita Kelly Madick, spokeswoman for the newspaper.
The former Knight Ridder paper was sold in June for $165 million to Sound Publishing Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of Canada's Black Press Ltd., a private company based in Victoria, British Columbia. Owner David Black at the time said he anticipated no layoffs.
"When they started to dig in -- revenue and expenses just aren't balancing," Madick said.
The Beacon Journal, with an average weekday circulation of about 143,000 and 185,000 on Sunday, has won four Pulitzer Prizes. The paper was the flagship of the Knight family's publishing empire before the 1974 merger that created Knight Ridder. It was among 12 newspapers sold after McClatchy Co. bought Knight Ridder Inc.
"We still believe we're in a good position to serve our readers and advertisers," said publisher Edward R. Moss, who joined the paper last month.
Several newspapers, including competitor The Plain Dealer, have offered buyouts recently with circulation decreasing at most daily newspapers as readers turn to television and the Internet for news.
The Dallas Morning News has said it expects 85 newsroom employees, nearly one-fifth of the newspaper's editorial employees, to accept voluntary severance packages and that layoffs are possible if not enough workers accept the buyouts.
About 170 employees took early retirement offers in June from The Washington Post, the newspaper's second round of buyouts in three years.