The owners of the Charleston Gazette-Mail have agreed to take the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Wheeling Newspapers is currently the high bidder to assume ownership of the company. The company, operated by the Nutting family, owns more than 40 daily newspapers across the nation, including the Wheeling, Parkersburg, Martinsburg and Elkins newspapers in West Virginia.
Charleston Newspapers, the company that owns the Gazette-Mail, issued a WARN notice to all employees Monday afternoon. A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice warns of the potential for layoffs exceeding 50 employees. Charleston Newspapers currently employs 206 people.
Wheeling Newspapers could decide to maintain current employment levels, but because that will remain unknown until the bankruptcy runs its course, Charleston Newspapers decided to issue the WARN notice, under advice of its attorneys.
The newspaper industry as a whole has been battered by heavy losses in advertising revenue and circulation for years. Charleston Newspapers was no different.
In August, arbitrator Edward McDevitt ruled the Gazette-Mail’s owners had to pay nearly $3.8 million to the former owners of the Daily Mail. The award represented the profit from the Gazette-Mail owner’s sale of the dailymail.com internet address, past-due management fees, future management fees to the company — MediaNews — attorneys fees, court costs and post-judgment interest.
Charleston Newspapers combined the Daily Mail and Gazette into the Gazette-Mail in 2015.
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