The latest shake-up at the Arizona Republic that resulted in numerous layoffs this week also includes the elimination of one day of publication for the six-year-old Scottsdale Republic insert, sources tell New Times.
The insert, originally designed to better compete with the East Valley Tribune's Scottsdale edition, previously ran five days a week but will now stop publishing on Tuesdays, say sources at the paper who wish to remain anonymous. The Scottsdale newsroom will also reportedly be merged with the Phoenix community newsroom.
The move to a four-day-a-week insert isn't surprising: The Republic's Gannett masters obviously feel that shortchanging the Scottsdale community is a safe business decision because competition in the city will disappear next month.
Meanwhile, the new round of layoffs that claimed 97 people across Phoenix Newspapers' several divisions -- including the Arizona Republic, La Voz and azcentral.com -- is resulting in new assignments for several top editors.
Paul Maryniak (pictured at left) will no longer be the general manager of the newspaper's southeast valley departments, sources say.
Both he and Venita James, southwest valley general manager, will now be editors who run the paper's suburban newsrooms. Maryniak's assistant editors are said to be Tom Spratt and John D'Anna.
We also hear that Alia Rau, who was an editor at the beginning of the week, will go back to reporting.
And there's another name for to add to the Republic layoff list: Jack Legg, copy editor.
Overall, this week's layoffs at Gannett probably affect more than 2,000 people, says an article on the National Press Photographers Association's Web site.
Several thousand more newspaper employees are being laid off this week at other media outlets, the article says.
With this economy, they sure won't feel alone.
