Tronc Cuts NY Daily News Newsroom in Half and Ousts Editor in Chief

The meeting lasted less than a minute. By the time it was over, reporters and editors at The NY Daily News had been told that the newsroom staff was being cut in half and that the editor in chief, Jim Rich, was out of a job. Grant Whitmore, an executive at Tronc, the media company that owns The News, presided over the meeting. About 50 members of the newspaper’s staff were in attendance. The new editor in chief is Robert York, currently the editor and publisher of The Morning Call, a Tronc-owned daily newspaper in Allentown (PA). 

Since Tronc, which is based in Chicago, bought The News from the New York real estate developer and media mogul Mortimer B. Zuckerman in September 2017 — for a reported $1 — it has been examining its latest asset. In a memo sent to the paper’s employees minutes after the quick meeting, the company said that it had been working to transform the tabloid into a publication better suited to the digital age. “But we have not gone far enough,” the memo said. After noting the paper is grappling with “significant financial challenges,” the Tronc statement got down to the nitty-gritty: “We are reducing today the size of the editorial team by approximately 50 percent and refocusing much of our talent on breaking news — especially in areas of crime, civil justice and public responsibility.”