Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times Owner to Slash 700 Jobs

The owner of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times is to slash 700 jobs as the company looks to restructure itself.

Tribune Company said 6% of its staff will be reduced, primarily from its newspaper business.

But the company stressed it will target operations personnel rather than journalists.

The employer, which has eight daily papers and is headquartered in Chicago, is restructuring its business to unify the non-editorial segments of the company's publishing business by integrating business units like digital media and manufacturing under common leadership.

"Aligning the non-editorial areas of our business units by function, rather than by geography, will allow us to better share best-practices, create efficiencies and maintain our local focus," said Peter Liguori, chief executive officer of Tribune, in a memo to employees.

In addition, Liguori told workers that the organisation will need to "invest more concertedly" in digital areas.

Tribune is preparing to separate its publishing business from its faster growing TV assets, following in the footsteps of some of its peers including News Corp and Time Warner.

In particular, Tribune agreed to buy Local TV Holdings LLC for $2.7bn (£1.6bn, €2bn) acquiring 19 television stations.

Publishing revenues of the business dropped 4% to $446,428 in the third quarter because of a decline in advertising sales.