Former Chron now Examiner columnist Ken Garcia (pictured) says Hearst waited too long to make cuts at the Chron. Garcia writes in his column this morning:

“The Chronicle has lost, by its own estimation, at least $60 million a year since Hearst took over the paper in 2000. Other organizations would have immediately pounced on the fact that the paper’s editorial staff far exceeded that of any newspaper in its circulation class, but not Hearst, which bravely and blindly announced that there would be no layoffs after the acquisition.

“Yet even when new management decided to try to slash union costs and reduce staff, it simply could not. After 13 years toiling at the Voice of the West, I took a buyout from the Chronicle in 2005 along with about 100 other journalists when the paper made a brief acknowledgment that it was in the midst of an economic seizure. And how did it react? By promptly hiring about half that many journalists back, as if new blood would somehow reinvigorate it.”