TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
The entire business news staff at The Journal News in Westchester County, New York, a Gannett newspaper, is gone this week in the round of 50 cutbacks at the paper.
These include business editor Mike Bieger and reporters Julie Moran Alterio, Jerry Gleeson and Jay Loomis. The former business editor, who was most recently data desk editor, Frank Brill, was also laid off. Brill is a former board member of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
The move calls into question whether eliminating coverage of business news in the worst recession in two decades is a good idea. Talking Biz News has been told that the paper will begin running The Wall Street Journal Sunday content this weekend as a way to compensate for some of the lost content.
There is no one left in a department that once had 14 people: a top editor, an assistant editor, three copy editors/page designers, eight reporters and one editorial assistant. Last December, business reporter David Schepp was also laid off. He covered workplace, business of health and Rockland County
This staff covered such locally based corporations as: PepsiCo, IBM, MasterCard, Reader’s Digest, MBIA, Dress Barn, Bunge, Jarden, Starwood Hotels & Resorts and many other smaller ones.
The staff also covered small business, the economy and consumer issues in an area with a population of 1.3 million people just north of the world financial center of New York City.
