Chicago Tribune says it will cut 80 jobs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Chicago Tribune told staff on Tuesday that it will cut 80 of its 578 newsroom jobs by the end of August, joining other Tribune newspapers that are laying off staff and trimming the size of their papers as they try to save money, according to a report on the paper's website.

A spokesman for the paper declined to comment on the report.

The cuts amount to nearly 14 percent of the paper's news staff, and come on top of other recent, similar announcements at the Los Angeles Times, The Sun in Baltimore and the Hartford Courant.

The latest round of cuts is the fourth since 2005 when the newsroom had 670 positions, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Tribune is selling properties such as the Newsday newspaper on Long Island and plans to sell others like the Chicago Cubs baseball team and the Wrigley Field baseball stadium in Chicago as it works to pay off $13 billion in debt.

Much of that comes from an $8.2 billion buyout deal led by Chicago real estate billionaire Sam Zell. Tribune since has been trying to sell various assets in a bid to avoid default as debt payments loom and its newspaper business worsens because

of a severe drop in advertising revenue.

The company also is shortening its papers and adjusting the ratio of ads to editorial copy as a way of cutting production costs.

Tribune is not the only newspaper publisher to cut jobs through layoffs or buyouts. Industry heavyweights such as The Washington Post Co, The New York Times and McClatchy Co have also been forced to swing the axe.

(Reporting by Robert MacMillan; editing by Carol Bishopric)