Dallas Morning News to Outsource Print Design Work, Eliminate 25 Jobs

The Dallas Morning News will outsource its design and print layout work, eliminating 20 positions by mid-year, Editor Mike Wilson informed the staff on Thursday.“In a tough revenue time, the priority is to keep reporters in the community telling stories,” Wilson said Thursday afternoon. “This change is meant to be invisible to readers.”Wilson wrote in an email to the staff that The News has hired GateHouse Media for the paper’s print page design and layout. GateHouse owns 121 daily newspapers, including the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Columbus Dispatch -- both of which it acquired in 2015.Its Center for News and Design in Austin copy edits and designs more than 200 newspapers and 300 special sections, according to its website. Among the papers it produces are daily sections for newspapers in the Cox Media Group, including the Austin American-Statesman.The News counts about 50 employees as members of its print team. Wilson wrote that 20 of those jobs will be eliminated with the outsourcing, but that 30 multi-platform editing jobs will be open to those whose jobs are getting red-lined.Those multi-platform editors will produce stories for the web, as well as copy edit and write headlines for print.GateHouse Media CEO Kirk Davis said the company’s Austin hub has been open for about three years and employs 230 people. He said he expects to hire around 50 new people in the coming year.He said he sees The News as a particularly exciting client.“If you have the desire to grow a commercial business and you have the opportunity to do work for a prestigious client like The Dallas Morning News, that will do a lot of the speaking for us in terms of growing,” he said. “We’ve made a huge investment in Austin.”News employees will be able to apply for jobs there. Wilson said The News print design team will be phased out between May and early June.Additionally, the paper laid off five newsroom employees, as it continues to grapple with declining revenues and broad consumer shifts across the industry.The changes come as part of a long-term effort to ensure that The News’ parent company, A.H. Belo, is “profitable for the next five years and beyond.”While The News’ revenue declines have been less severe than most publicly traded newspaper companies, it has continued to see drops in advertising revenue.To make up for those declines -- and anticipated continuing drops -- the company is working to build its marketing services divisions and will be putting new emphasis on digital and print subscriptions.  Continue reading...