(Updated 2:45 p.m.) Connecticut’s “oldest continually published daily newspaper” (for now) axed its D.C. bureau, half of its remaining two-person state Capitol staff, and its environmental reporter as part of what one veteran dubbed “The Mardi Gras Massacre.”
Those were among the casualties of the latest wave of layoffs at the Hartford Courant.
Mark Pazniokas (top picture), one of two reporters based at the state Capitol, has worked at the paper for 24 years and was its senior political correspondent. Dave Funkhouser held down the environmental beat.
Jesse Hamilton (pictured) was the last reporter based in the paper’s D.C. bureau.
They and other reporters were notified of their layoffs in phone calls Tuesday night. They will receive one week’s severance for every year worked, plus an extra week.
Chicago-based Tribune Co., which owns the paper, has been gradually thinning its staff and its page count in the wake of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. It is one of two corporate newspaper owners in the area that recently filed for Chapter 11 protection. The other is the Journal Register Co., which owns the New Haven Register.
A total of 100 employees got laid off. Thirty of them are reporters and editors — bringing the editorial staff to 135, half its estimated level at the end of 2007.
Cuts are also expected at the New Haven and Hartford Advocates, also owned by Tribune, according to a notice the Courant posted on its website Wednesday afternoon.
Last June the company cut 57 positions and shrank its weekly number of news pages from 273 to 206.
The latest wave of layoffs had been expected at the Courant. The only question was who would be the latest targets and precise numbers. About 30 – 35 positions were expected to be eliminated out of the 170-member news staff.
Pazniokas’ layoff was a particular surprise since one line of thought was, that as the Courant shrinks its coverage in the wake of hard economic times, it would concentrate its competitive strength — namely, its experienced, knowledgeable coverage of state government and politics.
On her Laurel Club blog, Duby McDowell’ identifies rest of the roster of laid-off reporters, including “Religion Reporter Elizabeth Hamilton, Business Reporter Robin Stansbury, … Steve Grant and Anna Marie Somma, sportswriter Matt Eagan, itowns editor Loretta Waldman, itowns reporter Nancy Lastrina, administrative assistant Judy Prato, Marge Ruschau, Features copy editors Adele Angle and David Wakefield, and library staffer & researcher Owen Walker.”
“We’re told that editor/reporter Kate Farrish resigned earlier this week as did editor John Ferraro,” McDowell wrote.
One job was saved mid-Wednesday: General assignment reporter Jesse Leavenworth was laid off Tuesday night. But then an editor came forward Wednesday to take a layoff instead, saving Leavenworth’s job.
On his personal blog, Courant veteran Courant writer Denis Horgan dubbed the layoffs “The Mardi Gras Massacre.” He described management’s decision to announce in advance that cuts were coming without identifying the targets “loathsome and mean-spirited and casually cruel.”