Another wave of layoffs has hit the New Haven Register, this time affecting copyeditors and sports staffers, among others.
Unlike in past layoffs, management refused to confirm details of the latest moves. Nor did management hold a newsroom meeting or distribute a companywide memo (another departure from past practice). So no firm numbers of layoffs were available. Register employees were left to sharing rumors and firsthand reports from laid-off coworkers all day Tuesday to gauge how hard their paper was hit this time.
According to people familiar with the layoffs, as many as 30 employees — certainly more than 20 — are believed to have lost their jobs in New Haven and at the company’s Torrington daily paper and monthly Connecticut magazine.
Some 12 – 15 employees who work in the daily newspaper’s Gando Drive offices learned that they’ll be out of a job sometime around Christmas.
The employees comprised the New England design “hub” of the Register’s parent company, Digital First Media. That hub’s now history; stories are to be edited and laid out in company offices out of state.
Two longtime editors — Rick Sandella, who oversees features, and Ann Dallas, in charge of graphics — also got the axe. As did several members of the sports department.
Diana Li Photo
“We will not comment on this personnel matter,” stated Register Publisher Kevin Corrado (pictured) in response to requests for comment sent to the Register’s local editor and to Digital Media’s Colorado central office.
The state Depertment of Labor did not as of late Tuesday have a notice on its website from the company detailing the layoffs.
Click here and here to read about other buyouts and layoffs at the company in recent years.