David Benner, Star sportswriter and Pacers exec, dies at 67
As a sportswriter for The Indianapolis Star, Benner covered coveted beats for the Indiana Pacers, Notre Dame football and IU basketball.
As a sportswriter for The Indianapolis Star, Benner covered coveted beats for the Indiana Pacers, Notre Dame football and IU basketball.
The company, which owns The Indianapolis Star, said in a notice to the state that the layoffs will begin on or about March 13.
The layoffs are the latest sign of the unrelentingly tough times in the newspaper industry, which has been steadily shrinking for more than a decade as more advertising shifts from print to digital and readers turn to other online outlets for information.
Krift joined the Star in February 2021 as news director. He previously led the Montgomery Advertiser as executive editor and held leadership responsibilities for newsrooms across Alabama and Louisiana.
The Star’s investment on a single story was especially astonishing at a time when local and regional newspapers around the country have faced shrinking ad revenue or hedge-fund takeovers, some of them closing altogether.
Katrice Hardy guided The Star’s coverage of the pandemic and racial unrest and led the publication to a Pulitzer Prize this year for national reporting.
The financially troubled credit union had been operating under a conservatorship since January. As part of the liquidation, about 500 members and most of their deposits have been transferred to Indianapolis-based Elements Financial Credit Union.
Greg Weaver’s responsibilities in the IBJ newsroom’s No. 2 leadership position will include coordinating its daily news coverage and e-newsletters, handling social media accounts and editing stories for the weekly print edition.
The National Credit Union Administration says it took control of operations at Indianapolis’ Newspaper Federal Credit Union because of “unsafe and unsound practices.”
Among those leaving is the investigations editor who oversaw the newspaper’s expose of USA Gymnastics that led the arrest of the team doctor who molested more than 100 girls.
Unlike previous Gannett buyouts, which required workers to meet certain criteria for age and years of service, the latest buyout is available to nearly all full-time Gannett workers.
In a column, Biro said her final day at the Star was Friday, and she left her job so she could move “back closer” to “her East Coast family.”
Katrice Hardy will become the first African-American and first woman to hold the title of executive editor at The Indianapolis Star.
Ronnie Ramos, executive editor of The Indianapolis Star since March 2018, plans to resign Dec. 20 “to pursue other opportunities,” the newspaper reported Monday morning.
Executives of the combined company, which will keep the Gannett name, acknowledged there will be layoffs—the company has committed to cutting $300 million in annual costs.
The country’s leading newspaper union issued a scathing analysis of the proposed Gannett-GateHouse merger Friday, saying the deal would drive down wages and employment for journalists at hundreds of newspapers. The merger will affect a dozen newspapers in Indiana.
On Aug. 5, GateHouse—a New York-based chain backed by an investment firm—announced a deal to buy Gannett for $1.4 billion.
Efficiencies wrought by the merger might result in publications that rely less on local reporters and more on USA Today-type stories produced or edited remotely and published in dozens of the company’s publications.
The Wall Street Journal reports that a deal could be announced in the coming weeks. Gannett owns The Indianapolis Star and a number of smaller Indiana newspapers.
The vote, completed at Gannett’s annual meeting, amounted to a rejection—possibly the final one—of Alden’s attempt to acquire Gannett through a hostile takeover launched in January by its Media News Group unit.