Gannett cuts 120 jobs at its 6 NJ newspapers

The cuts are part of a national reduction of 1,000 jobs, including 600 layoffs, across Gannett's newspaper operations around the nation. Gannett is the latest of several newspaper companies that announced staff reductions in recent months.

Gannett, like the other media companies, blamed deteriorating business conditions for the cuts.

The number of layoffs in Gannett's New Jersey operations was not announced in postings by the company Tuesday.

Messages left Wednesday seeking comment from Thomas M. Donovan, president and publisher of the Asbury Park Press and vice president of Gannett's East Newspaper Group, were not immediately returned.

The layoffs took place at the Asbury Park Press of Neptune, the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, the Home News Tribune in East Brunswick, the Courier News in Bridgewater, the Daily Record in Parsippany and the Daily Journal in Vineland.

Last month, Advance Publications Inc. told employees it would sell The Star-Ledger of Newark unless 26 percent of newsroom employees accept buyouts and the company gets new agreements from unions representing its mailers and drivers. Star-Ledger publisher George Arwady wrote employees that the paper was on "life support."

The paper has posted losses for at least three straight years and is on pace to lose between $30 million and $40 million in 2008, Advance Chief Executive Donald Newhouse said.

Advance, controlled by the Newhouse family, owns 26 daily newspapers as well as Conde Nast Publications, the second-biggest magazine publisher in the country.

In June, employees at The Record of Hackensack were told its owner would be selling its flagship office and moving some operations to the West Paterson base of its sister paper, the Herald News.