Too bad for the Voice

According to arkansasbusiness.com, Stephens Media of Las Vegas revealed in late February a decision to eliminate weekly newspaper staff positions in Arkansas and to outsource their advertising designing work to a company 1,200 miles away.

Byron Tate, publisher of the daily Pine Bluff Commercial, as well as of eight weekly newspapers in Lonoke, Pulaski and Van Buren counties and the weekly Hot Springs Village Voice and The White Hall Progress, said ad designers in Stephens’ Little Rock and Hot Springs Village offices will lose their jobs early in April.

Advertising Outsourcing Services LLC of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., is scheduled in mid-March to start creating advertisements for all of the newspapers under Tate’s oversight. Under the new system, local sales representatives will send instructions to the Pennsylvania company and will then receive ad proofs to show the advertisers, Tate said. Stephens Media’s flagship paper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and its Ames Tribune in Iowa already outsource their ad design work.

In Little Rock, the designers losing their jobs are Allan Miller and Brooke Cotton, who made advertisements for the eight central Arkansas weeklies. In Hot Springs Village, Stephens eliminated the design jobs of Kendall Kegly and Robert Lane.

Two ad designers in Pine Bluff have been retained. One will oversee the material that will come and go to Advertising Outsourcing, and the other will serve as graphic designer for special publications.

In the same week, Stephens also eliminated a fifth position — that of Robert Shearon, general manager of the Hot Springs Village Voice.

“It goes back to newspapers looking to save on expenses,” Tate said. “It’s unfortunate that these five people will be losing their jobs because they’re dedicated employees and they’ve been very valuable to us. We hate to make a move like this, but it’s a product of the economy we’re in.”

In another move to save money, Stephens Media closed its Maumelle office Feb. 24.
Mainly a receptionist and sales representative worked from that office, and those positions will be moved to Stephens’ office on Main Street in Little Rock, Tate said. “It just became a waste of resources,” he said.