The Chicago Sun Times building at 350 N.Orleans Street. (Nuccio DiNuzzo/Chicago Tribune)

A day after the death of Sun-Times Media Chairman James Tyree, who led the effort to save the local media company from liquidation 17 months ago, the company’s  flagship Chicago Sun-Times on Thursday laid off several newsroom employees.

“That was something that had been planned for a while. It certainly had nothing to do with yesterday’s news,” said Jeremy Halbreich, Sun-Times Media’s chief executive .

Sources said they believed the reduction affected four staff members, but Halbreich did not confirm an exact figure. The cuts, he said, were part of an ongoing effort to centralize certain operations among the company’s many area publications.