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Seattle Times, Chicago Sun-Times Face Job Cuts, Shrinking Pages

The Chicago Sun-Times has shrunk its width by one inch to save on newsprint costs, and The Seattle Times has announced plans to reduce its width by an inch come 2009.

Both papers are laying off employees. The Seattle Times says it will lay off 17 - none of them newsroom employees. The Chicago Sun-Times has announced that it is whittling down newsroom staff by 19 percent, the greatest newsroom decrease in recent memory.

The Seattle paper announced that it needs to cut $27 million to ensure stability in 2008. The job cuts and other cost-saving measures - such as no longer publishing a Sunday tabloid news section for Southeast King County readers, consolidating some weekday and Sunday features sections, and reducing the paper’s width - will save $21 million.

Liz Brown, administrative officer of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, wrote in a blog posting, “The fact The Times is not slashing its news work force shows its strong commitment to journalism. Compared with what is happening at metro newspapers around the country, the news [Tuesday] could have been much worse.”

On the other hand, Thom Clark, the president of the non-profit Community Media Workshop, which promotes neighborhood stories in Chicago, said the deep cuts at the Chicago paper are significant. “This is outright sinew and bone being cut,” he said of the Sun-Times’ staff layoffs.