Telegram & Gazette parent CEO made $3.4M in 2022

Photo | Timothy Doyle Telegram & Gazette headquarters, Worcester

Write a Comment

By Kevin Koczwara

Gannett Co., Inc. CEO, President, and Chair Mike Reed received $3.38 million in compensation in 2022, according to a preliminary proxy report released on Friday. Virginia-based Gannett owns more than 200 local newspapers including Worcester’s Telegram & Gazette and the MetroWest Daily News, based in Framingham.

GateHouse Media acquired Gannett for $1.1 billion in 2019 and kept the Gannett name. The merger made the company the largest newspaper company in the country. At the time, Gannett announced it would need to cut about $300 million in annual costs.

Reed, who joined GateHouse in 2006, saw his compensation drop from $7.7 million in 2021, but it is still significantly more than the median salary of an employee in 2022, which is listed as $51,035, according to the proxy report.

Reed’s annual salary is listed as $859,615 compared to $900,000 in 2021, and he received $2 million in stock awards in 2022 compared to $6 million in 2021. In addition, he got $513,652 in bonuses in 2022, something he did not receive the year prior.

Under Reed’s leadership, Gannett has gone through years of layoffs. In 2022, the company enacted two separate cuts that amounted to nearly 400 employees losing their job in August and another 200 being let go in December. The company suspended 401(k) matches for its employees in August, while Reed received a match of $6,184 in 2022.

In total, Gannett reduced the number of journalism jobs at the company over the course of 2022 from 4,846 at the end of 2021 to 3,900 at the end of 2022. The company reduced its total employee count to 11,200 people, which is far less than the 27,600 employees two companies had pre-merger in 2018. The Nieman Lab reports, by 2019, the employee count dropped to 21,255 and has subsequently declined with each passing year. The biggest hit came in 2021 when the number of employees went from 18,141 the previous year to 13,800 by the end of 2021.

The Telegram & Gazette has been hit particularly hard by numerous rounds of layoffs since Boston Globe and Boston Red Sox Owner John Henry sold the paper to Halifax Media Group in 2014, which was purchased by New York-based GateHouse in January 2015. Layoffs and buyouts began when Halifax purchased the company. At the time, there were 180 employees at the T&G, with about 80 in the newsroom.

Other Gannett-owned Central Massachusetts news outlets including the Holden Landmark, The Item in Clinton, The Grafton News, and Millbury-Sutton Chronicle, and baystateparent Magazine, saw their staffs cut and were expected to shut down. CherryRoad Media purchased the newspapers – but not baystateparent – in September after the papers’ staffs were eliminated by layoffs in August.

Axios reported on March 28 that Reed plans on eliminating more daily and weekly newspapers in the future.

Gannett’s annual shareholder’s meeting is scheduled for June 5, when investors will weigh in on non-binding ballot questions, including the company’s compensation structure.