Kalamazoo Gazette, Grand Rapids Press to cut positions
WEST MICHIGAN (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – On Friday Booth Newspapers announced staff reductions and changes in production and printing at The Grand Rapids Press, Kalamazoo Gazette, and Muskegon Chronicle as a result of the continued economic downturn.
As part of the plan, daily printing of the Kalamazoo Gazette will be performed at the print and packaging facility in Walker, MI, which currently serves the Grand Rapids Chronicle and Grand Rapids Press. Advertising production work for all three newspapers will be reassigned to a print and digital production facility.
An outbound call center, serving all of West Michigan, will be based in Kalamazoo.
The Booth organization says employment changes at the papers will include a reduction of all printing, production and packaging positions in Kalamazoo, along with a small number of positions in the circulation, advertising and newsroom. The majority of positions being eliminated in Grand Rapids are in ad production.
The Booth organization says that despite the struggles of the nation's largest media outlets, readership across all three West Michigan newspapers actually increased from 2007 to 2009.
