Thurgauer Zeitung cuts jobs and closes office
The Thurgauer Zeitung is cutting six jobs to save money. It is also closing the editorial office in Kreuzlingen. And the local section will be reduced by three pages per day from September.
This should save around 500,000 Swiss francs a year at the St. Galler Tagblatt's head paper, according to the SDA. David Angst, head of the Thurgauer Zeitung, confirmed a corresponding report by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The employees have been informed, Angst said. The reduction of 500 to 600 job percent will largely be achieved through voluntary departures and regular retirements. Only around 50 percent of the workforce will be laid off.
With the job cuts, the management hopes to save half a million francs per year. The Thurgauer Zeitung has so far been overstaffed with 40 full-time positions, Daniel Ehrat, managing director of Tagblatt Medien, is quoted as saying in the NZZ report.
The cost-cutting measures at the Thurgauer Zeitung are not related to the launch of the Sunday edition, said Philipp Landmark, editor-in-chief of Tagblatt Medien, in response to an inquiry from the SDA news agency.
Imprint fears loss of quality
The Swiss journalists' organization Imprint fears that the quality of local reporting will suffer: " The round of cuts joins a continuous, creeping downsizing that has been going on for years. The quality of reporting inevitably suffers under these circumstances." This will have negative consequences for the newspaper's market position, it said. The Tagblatt Media Group wrote continuously profit up to and including 2012, which cast doubt on the need to save money.
Teaser image: Thurgauerzeitung.ch
