Freedom Communications, Parent Company of the East Valley Tribune, Cutting Salaries

Freedom Communications, which publishes the East Valley Tribune, will slash pay by 5 percent for all employees, the company announced. The move is a bitter pill for Tribune employees to swallow, coming after a recent, mandatory five-day furlough, reduced coverage and January's layoff of 40 percent of the staff. But at least the paper is still...

By Ray Stern

June 30, 2009

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Freedom Communications, which publishes the East Valley Tribune, will slash pay by 5 percent for all employees, the company announced.

The move is a bitter pill for Tribune employees to swallow, coming after a recent, mandatory five-day furlough, reduced coverage and January's layoff of 40 percent of the staff. But at least the paper is still chugging along [and if you haven't heard, it won a Pulitzer this year].

The latest move doesn't bode well for the parent company, Freedom, which is struggling to pay off $700 million in debt it assumed a few years back. Editor and Publisher magazine notes that the pay cut comes just two weeks after interim CEO Burl Osborne took command. [Former Freedom CEO Scott Flanders bailed recently for a gig as Playboy's CEO, but even that venerable publication has been on rocky ground].

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.