Four losses were in the newsroom.

All levels of staff were affected, from the executive level down, said Myron W. Randall, The News-Post's editor and publisher, in a 1:30 p.m. address to employees.

"This has been the hardest thing for me to do," Randall said. "These cuts do not just affect positions but the people in them, and not just people, but friends. And not just friends, but our extended family."

Randall said the layoffs were a big shock to the company, and wanted them to happen quickly, like a Band-Aid being ripped off.

"Are we done with layoffs? Well, as far as I know," Randall said. "There are no guarantees in life. But we've tried our best to make it a one-time event."

The News-Post celebrated its 125th anniversary Oct. 15, and is one of the few family-owned newspapers left in the U.S. It is the only continuously family-owned independent daily newspaper in Maryland.

The company consists of the newspaper, FNP Interactive, a web design firm, and FNP Printing & Publishing, a commercial printing venture.

The News-Post is one of only 236 newspapers out of 1,447 dailies publishing today that remain independent and family companies, according to Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a merger-and-acquisition firm that keeps data on the U.S. newspaper industry. The Frederick paper is the 26th oldest family-owned newspaper in America.

"The good news is we're not closing our doors, we're not selling off any part of our company," Randall said. "We intend for the company to be around for at least several more generations."

But the paper has been hit by a poor economy, Randall told staff members. Over the last two years, advertising revenue has declined by millions of dollars, he said.

"We've been spending more than we've been selling this past year," Randall said.

The media organization has been cutting costs "as much as we can," he said.

However, a sour economy, with the stock market crash and banks slowing lending, has had a drastic affect on the company. The company's board of directors made the decision to lay off employees last week, Randall said.

"I did not want to follow the lead of other papers, where they cut their most important resource, people," Randall told workers. "Then the bottom fell out of the stock market, banks stopped lending money. Economic recovery is now years away, not months. More than ever our focus needs to be, and will be, on producing revenue."

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