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The Inland Empire-area papers of the Los Angeles News Group — those would be the San Bernardino Sun, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and the Redlands Daily Facts — are leaving their relatively new printing plant and will now be run off the presses at the Orange County Register. The chain's San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News and Whittier Daily News already print in Orange County.
The move in the Inland Empire means some staffers will be shuffled out to other LANG locations, but that a new desk of unknown size will return to the center of San Bernardino — a location the paper abandoned seven years ago. There's no mention of layoffs in Tuesday's memo from LANG president Jack Klunder.
Today we are announcing some changes to our San Bernardino operations that are consistent with our Digital First strategy – to get closer to our communities and to reduce or outsource activities not directly related to sales and content development.
Seven years ago, we moved our news desks from downtown San Bernardino to the printing facilities about six miles away. While we believe this was the correct decision at the time, today I am pleased to announce that we are moving back to the heart of the city. It is important that our newsgathering teams maintain their role as community watchdogs for the residents they serve. We intend to increase our participation in the affairs of San Bernardino and maintain a close eye on all the city’s activities. The new location is still being secured, and the timetable for relocation is fluid, but we expect to be operating from the new offices this fall.At the same time, many of our employees currently operating out of the San Bernardino offices will be relocated to other LANG facilities throughout the market depending on their role within the organization. Our goal is to place each employee in the office that is most appropriate to their duties. If you work in the San Bernardino office, your supervisor will be working with you over the next few weeks to iron out the details.
Finally, I want to inform you that in August of this year we will be moving the printing of The Sun, the Daily Bulletin and the Daily Facts to the Orange County Register print facility. The OCR facility currently prints the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News and Whittier Daily News. Once this move is complete, all of our Inland Division newspapers will be printed at the same location with the same level of quality and specifications. Our production colleagues at the current print and mailroom facilities have been notified of this change.
Preparing ourselves for the future of print/digital media is paramount to stabilizing our organization. These moves will increase our engagement with the San Bernardino communities, align our sales and support resources more strategically with the rest of the organization and provide financial savings that will allow us to re-invest in our content and sales organizations.
More to come on these changes as details become available. Stay tuned. Thanks.
Jack Klunder
President/Publisher & CEO Los Angeles News Group
