Whispers from 1st Ave S
August 23, 2007 at 1:04 pm by Wayne GarciaThe clock is ticking on the St. Petersburg Times‘ goal “to eliminate 80 to 90 jobs companywide by the end of 2007, mostly through attrition,” as Forbes reported last year.
The Citrus County section was killed and offices in Inverness and Crystal River were closed in April. And whispers of more changes are coming fast and furious.
The Largo zoned edition of the paper could be going away, one source says. And this week, five advertising reps were off-loaded. The paper hasn’t announced layoffs, per se, but appears to have taken to letting go some employees who, in happier economic times, probably would not have been targeted for dismissal (the recent firing of Tampa bureau writer Rick Gershman, for example, after a DUI arrest).
Of course, this is nothing compared with the free-fall that is the Tampa Tribune. Many employees there expect another round of layoffs later this year.
