"Reductions in staff" at Denver Post subsidiary Metro Mountain Media

MediaNews Group, the Dean Singleton-led company that owns the Denver Post and dozens of other newspapers around the country, recently announced that its holding company, Affiliated Media, would seek bankruptcy protection -- although the firm and the Post did their level best to downplay the B-word.

Shortly thereafter, a source told Westword about layoffs -- perhaps as many as a dozen of them -- at Metro Mountain Media, a Post division that boasts on its website of offering "Colorado Front Range businesses targeted advertising opportunities" by way of "five extremely successful core magazines," including Shopping Sense, Ever After and Mountain Vacations.

Jim Diaz, who oversees MMM for the Post, declined to comment on this topic. But Jerry Grilly, the broadsheet's president and CEO, confirmed that "there's been some changes -- some reductions in staff recently."

Grilly wouldn't reveal the number of "reductions" or what positions were affected, saying, "We don't release that information." But he was adamant that the decisions weren't prompted by the bankruptcy filing, which Singleton stressed wouldn't cause layoffs in remarks for the Post piece about Affiliated Media's Chapter 11 plan.

"The prepackaged bankruptcy has nothing to do with the Denver Post," Grilly insists. "Just like your company has adjusted and contracted based on the economy, we expand in areas that have greater opportunities and contract in areas where there are fewer opportunities."

Will those contractions include any of MMM's magazines? "I don't know," Grilly says, "but most of the publications are intact." As for which publications aren't intact, he wouldn't elaborate. Otherwise, he maintains that it's "business as usual."

Not for everyone, apparently.