When the Montgomery Advertiser "was forced to make quick and drastic budget cuts last week," three interns were suddenly left without summer jobs" at the paper in Alabama's capital, reports Richard Prince in his online Journal-isms column. "Similar cuts could be coming at other Gannett properties." The students " were instantly picked up by Schurz Communications, a South Bend, Ind., media company that owns 15 dailies and five weeklies," Prince reports. Charles Pittman, above, Schurz's senior vice president for newspapers, learned of the situation after speaking to the interns at the Freedom Forum's Diversity Institute, and told Prince he couldn't let "these young people have their internship pulled out from under them." They will go to the Herald Times [circulation 28,000] in Bloomington, Ind. "Schurz is taking a total of 13 interns, all [from] a joint multimedia program of Black College Wire and the Diversity Institute."Advertiser Publisher Scott Brown referred questions about the move to Wanda Lloyd, the paper's editor, who said she might have had to cut a full-time staff member to keep the intern slots. Gannett spokeswoman Tara Connell told Prince that the company's publishers have been told to control spending "when there's pressure on revenue," and Prince noted that the company's revenue dropped 6 percent last month. (Read more)
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