New York (CNN Business) In another sign of the growing financial crisis in print journalism, McClatchy (MNI), the owner or 30 US newspapers, has filed for bankruptcy protection.

The company, whose newspapers include the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee, The Charlotte Observer, The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas, says it plans to stay in business and emerge from bankruptcy in the next few months.

McClatchy is the nation's second largest publisher of local newspapers behind only Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and hundreds of local newspapers. Gannett has had its own problems and was recently acquired by New Media Investment Group.

McClatchy and some of the newspaper companies it has acquired over the years, including Knight-Ridder, have a long had a higher reputation than Gannett for quality news reporting. It recently won two Pulitzer Prizes and many other awards, most recently for the Miami Herald's coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal

Despite that reputation for quality, it has been cutting staff in response to falling revenue and mounting losses. Company filings show McClatchy had 3,500 full-time and part-time employees as of December 31, 2018, the most recent figure available. Five years earlier it reported just over twice as many employees. The company's press release said it has reduced its operating expenses by $186.9 million, or 23.3%, in the last three years alone, but it wasn't enough.

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