By Jeff Blumenthal
– UPDATE: Newspaper Guild President Howard Gensler said that management asked 14 total employees from the Inquirer (7), Daily News (5) and Philly.com (2) to stay with the company until Dec. 27, when the 2016 payroll year begins. All of the Inquirer and Daily News employees work in copy desk/ layout/ assignment desk capacities. All accepted the offer save for three of the five Daily News employees, so Gensler said management asked two laid off reporters to work the copy desk during that time period and they accepted the offer.
Some of the 46 editorial employees laid off by Philadelphia Media Network last month have been asked to stay beyond their scheduled Dec. 4 departure date, Newspaper Guild Local 10 and company sources confirmed.
Guild leaders said about six copy editors from the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News have been asked to stay on into December. Some will leave earlier but their absolute last date is Dec. 27. None of the laid off reporters or digital producers were asked to stay beyond Friday.
“Though it’s not our usual policy to comment on internal personnel decisions, I can confirm that some staffers were asked, and accepted the offer, of working a few more weeks,” PMN spokeswoman Amy Buckman said.
All but one Daily News copy editor was laid off last month, so it could be possible that PMN needs more time to plan for how it will handle copy desk duties for both print publications as it implements its plan to combine its three newsrooms — the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com.
The Daily News copy desk is well known for producing attention-grabbing cover headlines, so it will be interesting so see if that tabloid sensibility remains once those employees depart.
The Inquirer was not hit as badly as its two sister publications, 17 of 29 Philly.com editorial staff were laid off, while 17 of 60 Daily News editorial staff were affected and 12 members of the Inquirer editorial staff — estimated to be between 150 to 200 people — lost their jobs.
Source – http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2015/12/03/inquirer-daily-news-pmn-layoffs-stay-thru-xmas.html
