Lee cuts jobs following takeover bid, boosts executive compensation amid lackluster revenue; NewsGuild objects

"Lee Enterprises has been quietly laying off top editors and other staff across its local papers. The cost-cutting moves come after an unsolicited takeover bid from Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known for consolidating local news for profit," Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn report for Axios. "Journalists at Lee-owned papers across the U.S. say that at this point, they don't know whether staying independent or a hedge fund takeover is worse. 'If Alden is a cancer on journalism, Lee is Covid, MRSA and SARS,' one former editor told Axios."

Over the past two months, at least eight journalists have been laid off from five newsrooms: the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Bristol Herald Courier, the Omaha World-Herald, the Greensboro News & Record, the Winston-Salem Journal, and the Free Lance-Star, Axios reports.

The NewsGuild unit at the World-Herald released a fiery statement after top editors Randy Essex and Connie White were laid off in February. They called Essex "a champion of enterprise pieces, longform journalism and anything that gets people talking" and White "the best city editor we've ever had," working 70-hour weeks for the paper even after her husband was paralyzed a few years ago.

According to the NewsGuild statement, Lee regional news director Marc Chase told Guild representatives that Essex and White couldn't be replaced, "but that doesn't mean we won't grow and become stronger. We will." The Guild responded that Lee has done nothing to grow their operation in the 43 months it has run the paper, and asked: "How do we grow and become stronger when all Lee does is continually cut?" They also asked him: "How do you — how do we — work for a company that lays off Connie White and just paid CEO Kevin Mowbray a $1.1 million bonus?"

"Lee laid off at least 70 staffers, many in editorial, across several states amid the pandemic, in addition to implementing furloughs and cost-cutting measures, according to Poynter," Axios reports. "Former Lee employees told Axios and have publicly expressed their frustration over payouts to Lee management amid the newsroom cuts."

The Omaha NewsGuild tweeted, "Rational folks would be right to question why Lee is dolling out that much money to executives during a hostile takeover attempt, let alone while they gut newsroom and newspapers. . . . Lee has increased executive compensation even as the company's quarterly revenues "have either declined or grown modestly compared to the prior year."