McClatchy Chief Executive Gary Pruitt shared some details of the newspaper publisher’s operations in his speech on Tuesday at the Newspaper Association of America’s annual meeting. Here’s what he said, based on a transcript posted at the NAA’s website:

At McClatchy, 15% of our advertising revenue today comes from online. McClatchy, a company founded before the advent of electric lights, will generate nearly $200 million dollars in digital revenue this year at a higher profit margin than our print business.

What significance is this?

• Fifteen percent is above the average newspaper publisher’s take from digital
• $200 million would be almost enough to run The New York Times’s newsroom operations for a year. Not bad.

Higher profit margins than print? We know Gary is a big fan of pop music to highlight his industry presentations, and that he likes the Rolling Stones in particular. Maybe “Time Is on My Side” would be a decent choice for those kinds of numbers.

Actually, Gary *did* think of some Stones songs that would characterize the current state of newspapers: “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Gimme Shelter,” “Shattered” and “19th Nervous Breakdown” made the list. In the end he scrapped Mick and Keith and went with the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

These have been a couple of ugly weeks for the newspaper industry. First, EW Scripps pulled the plug on the Rocky Mountain News, and then, today, McClatchy said it was cutting about 1,600 jobs, representing 15 percent of its workforce.

For those who like to look at the bright side of things, McClatchy isn’t shutting down The Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee or Anchorage Daily News. But the staff cuts are deep and undoubtedly will hurt  the quality and depth of coverage at some of those newspapers. How couldn’t they? After all, they come on top of two other major rounds of layoffs at McClatchy.

The move isn’t really a surprise, given that McClatchy said back in early February that it had to come up with a plan to cuts more costs given the deterioration of the industry. Still, it seems job cuts at the company come as frequently as seasons change.

Here’s what CEO Gary Pruitt had to say in today’s statement:  “We have been transitioning steadily from a traditional newspaper company to a hybrid print and online, news and advertising company for some time. The effects of the current national economic downturn make it essential that we move even faster to realign our workforce and make our operations more efficient. We previously discussed a plan to reach a targeted level of cost savings, but given the worsening economy, we must do more. I’m sorry we have to take these actions, but we believe they are necessary.”

If that sounds familiar, it should.  On two previous occasions in recent months Pruitt has used similar language to announce job cuts. Here’s a refresher.

– September. McClatchy announces it is cutting 1,150 positions. Pruitt: “It is painful to announce these staff reductions, but the continued restructuring of our company is necessary given the relentless economic downturn and its impact on our business.”

– June. McClatchy announces it is cutting 1,400 positions. Pruitt: ”The effects of the current national economic downturn — particularly in real estate, auto and employment advertising — make it essential that we move faster now to realign our workforce and make our operations more efficient. I’m sorry this requires the painful announcement we are making today, but we’re taking this action to help ensure a healthy future for our company.”

Any McClatchy staffers out there please pass along any thoughts you may have. Is this the last round of cuts? Has coverage been impacted? What’s the mood out there? Is Pruitt leading in the right direction?

(Photo: Reuters).

McClatchy Co, fresh off amending the terms on paying back its debt, is busy making some changes at its newspapers. The owner of the Miami Herald and Sacramento Bee has replaced three publishers in the past two days. We don’t yet know if this is coincidence or part of a coordinated move.

Here’s where we are so far:

The Tribune in San Luis Obispo, California: Bruce Ray takes over from Chip Visci, who is retiring, according to a press release. Ray previously was chief financial officer at the paper. Visci, according to McClatchy Chief Executive Gary Pruitt, is starting “the next chapter of his life.” Visci’s previous chapter was as a Knight Ridder guy before McClatchy ate up the chain and incurred all those billions of dollars in debt.

(Visci just called back and left a message, which is worth reporting for its humorous candor: “I can assure you that there’s no such shuffle underway… If there really were something up, I probably wouldn’t have called you back.”)

The Bradenton Herald in Florida: Robert Turner Jr succeeds William Fleet, who will become president and publisher of McClatchy’s Fresno Bee in California. Turner is a 29-year veteran of the Herald, according to another press release. Fleet was in California and unavailable. Turner was in a meeting, so we left a message.

The Fresno Bee: Fleet replaces Ray Steele Jr, who is retiring. No word about the next chapter in his life. He has worked for McClatchy for 41 years.

So what’s the news, McClatchyites? Write to robert dot macmillan at reuters dot com and let us know.  We won’t rat you out.

McClatchy Chief Executive Gary Pruitt is one of those newspaper executives a reporter can get along well with because of qualities that are not always common to your typical CEO:

• He leaves the jargon behind at interviews.
• He is honest about bad news, making it easier to believe him when he delivers good news.
• He believes in the product — good journalism — as fervently as he does in his duty to please shareholders (which in McClatchy’s case includes the company’s namesake family and a bunch of other unhappy people).

Trouble is, there isn’t much good news to tell about the newspaper business. Pruitt has said as much to us and others, but in his latest interview in the Sacramento News & Review, (which we found on Romenesko) he shows us how much he feels his employees’ pain:

This has been the worst year of my life, by far.

That’s a pretty grim assessment. Then again, he’s presided over a 90 percent drop in McClatchy’s stock price, he’s cutting staff by 10 percent, and there appear to be few options open to the company to change the way it’s set up. The primary obstacle is $2 billion in debt from its acquisition of newspaper publisher Knight Ridder just before the key advertising struts supporting the company snapped.

Here’s more from Pruitt, on the economy:

One of the things that I wanted to emphasize is, obviously, we’re impacted by the economic downturn… It’s difficult to tease out how much of this is cyclical, and therefore temporary, and how much is secular and permanent. People have a tendency to conflate the two and assume, “Oh my god, it’s the end of the world as we know it-so why do you feel fine?”

And on the near future:

You don’t want to cut expenses and hurt the company if it’s temporary… On the other hand, you want to keep the company safe and secure for the long-term future, and that’s a very difficult balance to strike. I remain optimistic long-term, but in the short run, things may get worse. I hope not, but they could. Sorting that out has been difficult, stressful, painful, whatever you want to call it.

And on his future at the company:

I came into this not because I had an MBA and I thought this was a good way to make money, but because McClatchy believed in First Amendment rights and quality journalism… When you see the bad revenue numbers, you go, “Oh god, this is so terrible, I don’t need this anymore.” But probably the only thing worse than staying would be quitting. It’s too important.

Aside from the whole McClatchy theme, there is a ton of exposition in the article about how much of a music fan Pruitt is, particularly of the Rolling Stones (and an anecdote about Pruitt meeting Mick Jagger and Keith Richards backstage, which is worth reading). There also is the inevitable pull-quote with lines from the Stones song “Gimme Shelter.” I might have picked, “As Tears Go By.”

You can say one thing for Gary Pruitt , McClatchy’s CEO and perhaps the most ardent defender of the newspaper business — he knows what we all want.

Here’s his comment from the analyst call he did today to discuss McClatchy’s first-quarter earnings :

We want to make sure we maintain our ability to generate revenue.

Who could ask for anything more?

Pruitt also showed off his lighter side in an exchange with Goldman Sachs’s Peter Appert. When the analyst said he was going to ask an unfair question, Pruitt responded, “That’s because I’m going to give you an unfair answer.”

Cue laughter, then cue crying because Appert’s question is at the heart of what most newspaper people want to know: Isn’t there a point where you can’t cut your way to profitability anymore?

Pruitt’s answer:

We feel we have no choice. Given the revenue trends, we’re simply going to have to reduce costs. We do believe that we can sustain a good record on costs throughout this year. We face increasing newsprint prices later in the year and that will work against us. But on the other hand, we are looking at further efficiencies throughout the company and we suspect that when you exclude any severance costs and the effect of newsprint pricing, we should be able to sustain a double-digit run rate on expense decline.

(Photo: Reuters)