Staff Report
Published Feb. 6, 2009

The Post and Courier newspaper announced today that it has laid off 25 employees.

The publisher of the Charleston daily newspaper said he had hoped buyouts offered to employees in July would have prevented the job cuts.

“When we announced a voluntary separation package last summer, we had hoped to avoid this day,” Publisher Larry Tarleton said in an e-mailed statement. “But no one could have foreseen the rapid decline in the U.S. economy that has impacted practically every American business.”

Tarleton said the local advertising market deteriorated in the fourth quarter and dropped further in January, “with the sharpest revenue decline in our history.”

“These actions are necessary to guarantee the long-term success of our company,” Tarleton said in a statement on the newspaper’s Web site.

The Post and Courier is owned by Evening Post Publishing Co., a privately held company with headquarters in Charleston. 

When the company announced its buyout offer in July, the newspaper reported that it had 513 full-time and part-time employees. Today Tarleton said the paper had 485 employees, prior to the cuts.

The layoffs, which represent an employee reduction of about 5%, touched nearly all departments, Tarleton said.

Media companies across the state and nation have implemented layoffs, buyouts and furloughs, among other cuts, in recent months.

Even before the recession, newspapers were feeling a pinch from declining subscriptions. A stark decline in advertising revenue — prompted particularly by a slowdown in real estate and the auto industry — has thrust the industry into turmoil.

Last month, Gannett Co., the nation’s largest newspaper publisher and owner of The Greenville News in the Upstate, announced it is requiring nearly all of its 31,000 employees nationally to take five days of unpaid leave.

The McClatchy Co., owner of The State in Columbia, The Sun News in Myrtle Beach and seven other S.C. publications, announced this week it is suspending its 401(k) match and pension plan and will soon roll out a measure to shave an additional $110 million from the books. It was unclear whether layoffs would be part of that plan. 

Osteen Publishing, the family-owned publisher of The Item of Sumter and two weekly newspapers, is requiring its employees to take four days of unpaid leave during the next four months.

“I think we’re just a passenger on a train here; we just don’t know where we’re headed or when the train’s stopping,” General Manager Larry Miller said.

Ohio-based Brown Publishing Co., owner of SC Biz News LLC, which includes the Charleston Regional Business Journal, has also mandated a five-day furlough for all staff members. Additionally, the company has suspended its 401(k) match and reduced staff through layoffs and attrition.