Register owners lay off 42 at Riverside Press-Enterprise

Less than a month after buying the Riverside Press-Enterprise, Freedom Communications said today it will lay off 42 employees at the paper — mostly in sales, finance and circulation departments that duplicate functions also provided at the Orange County Register, the flagship paper for Freedom. Aaron Kushner, the head of Freedom, told the Register's reporter, Mary Ann Milbourn, that no “frontline journalists” would be affected by Wednesday’s announcement. He would not elaborate, the story says. "The whole idea is to consolidate functional departments to deliver a great newspaper," Kushner said.

Kushner previously named a new publisher and a new editor at the Press-Enterprise. The purchase closed Nov. 21.

Pretty much everything Kushner says or does will be news in Los Angeles going forward. He disclosed last week that he plans to expand into Los Angeles County next year and publish a new LA Register, using staff redirected from the OC Register. There's been some chatter about that:

Newsonomics of Register's LA play yet to be determined
Register starts looking for staffers who want to move
Aaron Kushner’s Grand Plan for Expanding the OC Register to LA KCRW
California Publisher Plans to Start a New Paper NYT