CIRCULATION SLUMP
Warren Buffett’s newspaper group cuts 289 jobs
The billionaire has praised newspapers that focus on local communities, which he says can be profitable
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway eliminated 289 jobs at its newspapers amid a decline in print readership and advertising revenue. The cuts include 108 vacant positions, according to a memo on Monday from Terry Kroeger, CEO of BH Media Group. Some papers are also reducing the amount of pages they publish. "While more readers than ever turn to our digital products, our digital revenue is not growing fast enough yet to offset print revenue losses from both advertising and circulation," he wrote. "Therefore, we need to cut our expenses." Buffett, who called a teenage job delivering newspapers his "one brief flirtation with honest labour", expanded his bet on the industry in recent years, buying papers from Virginia to Oklahoma. The billionaire has praised newspapers that focus on local communities, which he says can be profitable. The memo did not identify which of the publications were targeted for cost cuts. The firings were reported earlier on Monday by the Omaha World-Herald, on...
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