Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Is Cutting More Jobs Across Newspaper Group

• February 20 2018
• Katherine Chiglinsky, Noah Buhayar

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is slimming down its newspaper empire with more job cuts.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is slimming down its newspaper empire with more job cuts.

His hometown newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald, is eliminating 43 positions including vacant ones, the paper reported on its website Tuesday. Eleven newsroom employees were among those let go as the publication copes with declining advertising from national retailers and rising newsprint costs.

Job cuts also hit at least two more Berkshire papers, with the Press of Atlantic City saying Tuesday that it eliminated 16 positions, including four spots that aren’t currently filled. The Richmond-Times Dispatch in Virginia is also trimming staff.

Lissa Cupp, chief marketing officer for Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire’s BH Media Group, confirmed the cuts.

Buffett’s organization hasn’t been spared from the industry’s decline in traditional advertising and circulation. Last year, the newspaper group eliminated 289 jobs, including 108 vacant positions, saying digital growth couldn’t offset print revenue losses. Some publications at that time scaled back the number of pages they printed.

Buffett has long been a supporter of the news business and even delivered papers when he was a teenager. He agreed six years ago to buy most of Media General Inc.’s newspapers to expand his media group, and he’s snapped up publications in Virginia since then.

— With assistance by Rob Golum