Digital First Media
An agreement between the Newspaper Guild of Detroit and 21st CMH Acquisition Co. has delayed the sale of Journal Register Company, Adrienne LaFrance reports.

The deal eliminates 15 positions, including laying off five circulation clerks, three janitors and seven paginators who worked at the Macomb Daily and the Daily Tribune. Unionized employees had been braced for worse, including 15 percent across-the-board pay cuts. JRC newspapers elsewhere in the country are also reporting layoffs on the horizon, including 11 cuts to news and circulation staff at The Daily Freeman in New York. A letter was sent to all Journal Register employees in February that said the new company will decide which employees it will hire.

The sale had been scheduled for Tuesday. Journal Register Company filed for bankruptcy in September.

Digital First Media
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved Journal Register Company's sale to 21st CMH Acquisition Co., JRC said this morning in a press release. The sale is scheduled to occur April 2.

21st CMH Acquisition Co. is a unit of Alden Global Capital, which already owns Journal Register. When Journal Register announced its bankruptcy, Digital First Media CEO John Paton told employees the company could "no longer afford the legacy obligations incurred in the past." Selling the company, even to a unit of its current owners, could allow it to shed some of those obligations.

21st CMH is negotiating with the Guild at JRC's Michigan papers. Guild members say 21st CMH asked for a 15 percent across-the-board pay cut and wants the ability to outsource jobs. (Efforts to locate a 21st CMH spokesperson have so far proven fruitless.) A Guild bulletin Poynter obtained (embedded below) says the next bargaining sessions are scheduled for March 30 and 31 and April 1. (more...)

Journal Register Company and 21st CMH Acquisition Co., the hedge fund unit that plans to buy it out of bankruptcy, have "declared war," a bulletin sent to union members says. The bulletin cites what it says are previous union-busting tactics in other markets. In Philadelphia and New York, the union says:

21st CMH sent letters to JRC employees telling them they could apply for their own jobs when 21st CMH becomes the employer. 21st CMH would selectively hire some employees. The new terms of employment by 21st CMH, according to the letters, include:

• 15% pay cut.
• employees pay 50% of health insurance cost and 50% of future premium increases.
• elimination of all pension plans.
• reduced vacation schedule.
• reduced severance pay if jobs are eliminated.

(more...)

Journal Register Company
The Journal Register Company signed a "stalking horse" agreement with 21st CMH Acquisition Co., a unit of Alden Global Capital. JRC declared bankruptcy in September.

The purchase may seem a little weird because Alden already owns Journal Register Company. At the time JRC declared bankruptcy, Digital First Media CEO John Paton sent an FAQ to employees (PDF) that said the company could "no longer afford the legacy obligations incurred in the past."

Many of those obligations, such as leases, were entered into in the past when revenues, at their peak, were nearly twice as big as they are today and are no longer sustainable. (more...)

CJR | CJR
Digital First Media CEO John Paton shared some financial information with Columbia Journalism Review reporter Ryan Chittum, who also posts a Journal Register Company bankruptcy document filed with a court in New York.

Of JRC’s $295 million in revenue last year, $167.1 million of it was print ads, $86 million was print circulation, and $30.1 million was digital ads. That means digital ads were 10.2 percent of JRC’s total revenue, up sharply from the pre-Paton era when it was a miserable 2.8 percent.

Chittum points out three important caveats: (more...)

The Journal Register Company announced it was declaring bankruptcy Wednesday. Digital First Media operates JRC; its CEO, John Paton, said in the announcement that a subsidiary of JRC's current owners has made a bid for the company, so possibly when the company emerges from bankruptcy it will enjoy the same management, just with less debt. It's not an easy business move to get one's arms around. Here are a couple of explainers.

• JRC editor Matt DeRienzo calls the bankruptcy a "big, pain-in-the-ass distraction in the short-term" but is optimistic: The company "remains very profitable on an operating basis," he writes, and newsroom spending is "flat" company-wide. "That’s a remarkable achievement in the environment and economy of today," DeRienzo writes, "and I’d challenge you to find another major newspaper company that hasn’t cut newsroom spending over that time period." The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., DeRienzo writes, will see that JRC employees won't lose their retirement. (more...)

Yale Daily News
Diana Li and Christopher Peak compare the New Haven Register, the corporate-owned newspaper reinventing itself as "digital first," and the New Haven Independent, the upstart nonprofit news site. Editors at the newspaper describe how they're opening up the newsroom, hosting online chats, linking to blogs and asking for community input. "They’re doing everything we did, a few years after we started,” says Independent Editor Paul Bass. “It is a golden age in New Haven for journalism. Old media is finding new ways to do the job ... It’s a great time to be a reporter. At least until the money runs out.” || Earlier: Layoffs at New Haven Register continue Journal Register’s outsourcing of printing operations (Poynter)