McLean-based Gannett Co. Inc., the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, sent an email to employees Monday announcing mass layoffs, furloughs and pay cuts, according to The Daily Beast. Like other media outlets, the company has reportedly a large drop in advertising revenues recently due to the financial crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gannett has a portfolio of 261 local daily newspapers in 46 states and Guam, including its flagship publication USA Today, as well as the Arizona Republic, the Des Moines Register and the Burlington Free Press.
“Everyone will be touched by these changes in some form,” Gannett CEO Paul Bascobert wrote in the email leaked to The Daily Beast. “For some it will be economic, for others it will mean covering the work of a colleague on furlough, for many it will be both.”
