Star-Ledger announces cuts

George Arwaday, publisher of The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, sent a memo to employees Thursday detailing new pay and benefits cuts at the paper. The entire memo has been posted to Poynter's Romenesko blog.
From the memo:

The first $40,000 of your new combined annualized income will be cut by 5%. If you make more than $40,000, your next $40,000 in income up to $80,000 will be cut by 10%. Any annualized income over $80,000 will be cut by 15%.

In addition, Arwaday told employees that any bonuses they receive will be rolled into their salary and not delivered all at once at the end of the year.
In addition, all employees will now have to pay for 25 percent of their health care coverage. These moves were put in place to help offset a $20 million year-over-year drop in first quarter ad revenue.
To read the memo, click here.

Former Star-Ledger employees start news site

Last year, New Jersey's The Star-Ledger bought out nearly half of its 330 newsroom employees in an effort to avoid shutting down or exploring a sale if costs could not be cut.
According to Editor & Publisher, 40 of those former employees have now started up their own news site, NewJerseyNewsroom.com.

The site, which so far has only Google ads but virtually no overhead, claims about 10,000 page views per week. It is mixing original reporting about the Garden State -- ranging form statehouse issues to sports -- along with links to other sites, including the Star-Ledger. An arrangement with Voice of America also allows the site to use that outlet's content.

No one working for the site is being paid yet, since they each have several months worth of salary payments remaining from their buyouts. This helps the new site keep costs low while it tries to attract readers, advertising dollars and funding.
To read more, click here.