Courthouse News Service is reporting that a former newspaper reporter-turned-attorney filed a class action lawsuit against his local newspaper in North Carolina alleging that its June 17 announcement of staff layoffs and content reductions will deliver an “inferior product” to subscribers like him.
Keith Hempstead, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit against The News & Observer owned by the McClatchy newspaper chain, claims he renewed his subscription to the paper prior to the announcements of the layoffs and has not been offered a refund. He says he would not have renewed his subscription if he knew about the layoffs and content reductions, including the elimination of a section that covers his hometown.
No word yet on whether anyone is following Hempstead’s example in Connecticut, where the Hartford Courant announced last week that it plans to cut its newsroom staff by 53 employees this July and reduce its paper size from 273 pages per week to 206 by September.