HONOLULU — Due to the economic downturn, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin is planning to close its Neighbor Island bureaus on Kaua‘i, Maui and Big Island, effective March 1, sources said Friday. The daily Honolulu-based publication has announced 17 newsroom layoffs and
HONOLULU — Due to the economic downturn, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin is planning to close its Neighbor Island bureaus on Kaua‘i, Maui and Big Island, effective March 1, sources said Friday.
The daily Honolulu-based publication has announced 17 newsroom layoffs and additional cuts to an undetermined number of employees elsewhere in the company, Oahu Publications Inc. There will also be a wage freeze, according to the paper’s Web site.
Neighbor Island news will continue to be covered by reporters on O‘ahu and wire services, the site says.
“This is part of a bigger, broader economic plan for the paper, not only the paper but the entire company,” Star-Bulletin editor Frank Bridgewater said. “There are cuts throughout the company, this is just one of many areas. … Whether we send our own reporters, or use wire, or use stringers, we will still cover news on the Neighbor Islands.”
The paper also announced that it is converting from a broadsheet newspaper to a tabloid — becoming similar in size to sister publication MidWeek, which is dropping its relatively new weekend edition — and taking steps to deal with the recession.
Dennis Francis, president of the company and publisher, made the announcements.
As the economy has worsened, there have been cuts by newspapers across the country, including the Honolulu Advertiser, which last week agreed to a tentative contract that includes a 10 percent pay reduction, the Web site states. That newspaper also has cut 150 positions since negotiations on that contract began, according to the Hawai‘i Newspaper Guild.
Most recently, the Advertiser announced 10 layoffs in December and 41 voluntary buyouts.
Advertiser Publisher Lee Webber told the Associated Press that those cuts responded to “continued deterioration in local, national and world economic conditions.”
The Star-Bulletin is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in Hawai‘i, according to its Web site. The paper’s first issue was printed in 1882.
