Posted on 10/06/2008 5:06:05 PM PDT by Drango
This is a breaking situation this afternoon. Editors met over the weekend to get the word and to refine their lists. Newsroom staffers are being told today individually and in department meetings that as many as 75 editorial positions are being cut through voluntary departures and layoffs. Some staffers were approached last week about volunteering, "enticed" with the threat that this will be the absolute final time that editorial employees will receive two weeks severance pay for each year of service when they leave. When new publisher Eddy Hartenstein took over in August, right after the last round of deep cuts, he was asked repeatedly about the prospect of new layoffs, and according to a first-hand report I passed along then:
The question of more layoffs was posed in half a dozen different ways and he said he hadn't been given a target number for the staff, that Sam Zell told him to run the place, etc., etc. He did say (as did Mark Willes and Sam Zell) that we can't cut our way to prosperity.
I've emailed Hartenstein and Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan some questions about what has changed since August and the extent of this round of cutbacks. My sources say the newsroom staffing level is headed to about 650, but I don't know if that includes the decimation of the Washington bureau expected by many there after the November election. Associate Editor for features Leo Wolinsky is holding a meeting with his staff shortly amid strong rumors that he is leaving. Stay tuned.
LOL. Here in Mobile, it's who the Black, male teenagers raped, robbed and killed last night. (day after day)
I’m a 31 year subscriber to the Orange County Register and I’m on the verge of cancellation. This rag has turned to left and I’m sick of it. Used to be a decent newspaper.
I think they could outsource their reporting to India and get a better paper. /s
Combination of elitism and the internet.
Yeah the majority of papers are liberal but it just means that the TV commies will have even more influence
Reading a paper gives you time to think and reflect rather than the mindless superficial 30 sec sound bites on TV
oh NO!!! A toilet paper shortage!!!!
The dog...what about the dog???
You mean Communist, anti-American, pro-gay, anti-family, anti-gun, pro-abortion, Liberal, forced Diversity perspective isn’t selling?
That’s news to me.
If my co-writer hadn’t been laid off, I would have had time to include that.
DIE L.A.T. DIE !
May humor be the last one to leave the building.
Can someone tell me why it takes 75+ editors to get the DNC memo every morning and to publish it?
Did they employee all of these people in the first place as part of some hire a hack program?
LOL! Sadly so damn true. We have that in S FL too. The NY Times and other cannot die fast enough. They kill millions of trees each year and they have a huge “carbon footprint” for just printing Lib propaganda.
I didn’t think they had 75 employees left in total! Have bought just the Sunday Times for years; past months have been very revealing — there’s nothing there — they cut whole sections, two times within a year, yet still they are hurting.
The paper is a rag — was always lib leaning but now it’s impossibly leftist and editorials/letters to editor just not worth reading at all.
I am now buying it just for the coupons (which pay for the paper if I use two or three) and Travel section. I think the thing will disband within another year.
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