Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Company lays off reporter injured in 2008 City Hall shootings
Remember that City Council meeting shooting last year where five people were killed and a metro reporter was shot in the hand by an enraged citizen?Well, the reporter, Todd Smith, was laid off last week.
Smith was a metro reporter covering Webster Groves and Kirkwood at the time of the February, 2008, Kirkwood shootings and went to Kirkwood City Hall to cover what he thought would be a regular City Council meeting. It was the night that Cookie Thornton stormed in with a .44-caliber Magnum and in a mere one minute and 32 seconds killed five people -- two council members, the city's public works director and two police officers -- before turning the gun on himself.I'm going to refrain from making any puns or anything. Apparently the paper won a Sigma Delta Chi award for its online coverage of the shooting (Smith was the online editor for two suburban editions). The article said that Smith was one of a number of people let go throughout the company.
Smith took one of Thornton's bullets in the right hand. He immediately pulled out his cell phone with his left hand to call the Journals. "I said they'd need to send somebody else, because I'd been shot in the hand."
Labels: business practices, dismay, layoffs
continue...Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Goodbye, City Weekly
There are a few reasons why I even have a career in journalism.NABJ is one of them.
The organization made me believe I could do this. They gave me confidence in my voice.
Michael Holley, a former Boston-area sports columnist, now of WEEI, is another. He was the first newspaperman I ever actually talked to. He met me for lunch randomly one day during my senior year. I love him for that.
And yet, one of the great thrills of my journalism career was being published over and over and over in my hometown newspaper, the Boston Globe. (I hope to God the New York Times Co. does not close its doors.)
But a portion of that newspaper's heart was cut out of the equation recently. City Weekly was the Globe's offbeat news feature section, that great slice of the local paper that tried weekly to make our relatively large city a little smaller, a little warmer, a little more, well, local. Now it's gone.
This sucks. Not afraid to say it. This really sucks.
This is not about clips, though writing for the section certainly gave me plenty of those. It means that Boston might never read about a group of young hip-hop artists coming together in Mattapan to produce a mixtape. The group of Roxbury residents trying to change city ordinances on construction noise? You'd never hear about it. And Bostonians might never read about what its like for a family to cope with the loss of a young person to a violent death.
These were just my contributions, the city as I saw it.
And there are no warm cliches. No it will be all right. No farewell. It just sucks.
Labels: layoffs
continue...Monday, April 06, 2009
It’s getting kinda hectic around here.
All around us, we’re seeing the ruins of papers gone. Bye Bye
At my paper, the company is proposing to guild members to take a 2.5 percent pay cut. The Guild put out a newsletter detailing the cut and asking for our feedback. On the back, lists a few options of things we could ask for in exchange for the cut.
As my coworkers looked at the paper, they all but exploded with outrage that they were being asked to make yet another cut (the company has laid off at least 100 guild members in the last 6 months, stopped our 401k match and delayed a contribution for the pension phase out plan already). They indignantly marked “there are no circumstances under which I would accept a pay cut.”
I stared at the paper and twirled my pen in my hand. I didn’t know what option to choose.
Here’s my problem: I have a job. And I’m grateful for it. Especially as I see friends up the road dealing with the prospect of being unemployed very soon. Do I want to take a pay cut? Hell no. Do I want to keep my job? Hell yes.
I was talking to a friend in
Labels: business practices, dismay, dying newsroom, fear, layoffs, media ownership, the industry, union
continue...Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Not to temper Aaron's enthusiasm because I, too, admire the work Bob and others have accomplished, but things here in my newsroom are a little somber.
For weeks, there's been talk of impending layoffs. Every day we'd get messages like this one from the guild regarding the rampant rumors circulating around the newsroom.
The Guild has been informed by the company that there will be no announcement regarding layoffs today. At this point we do not expect to hear anything until Monday or Tuesday.I hated those e-mails. And the constant chatter near the printer about how it would all be handled, and when, if ever we would get any details. Today, we finally got word.
Company wide 100 people are being laid off. I still have my job, but 18 of my colleagues don't. No reporters were laid off, but 1 section editor, a copy editor, and pairs of artists, photo editors, visual technicians, photographers and editorial assistants were. In addition, 5 state staff office assistants, including my two favorite people in the world, D and B, were laid off.
This is the second round of layoffs we've had in the last six months. Everyone keeps speculating that another round - which the execs say is always contingent upon the economy - isn't too far behind.
Labels: heart, layoffs, the industry, writer's guild
continue...Finding inspiration
I'm so tired of hearing my peers talk pessimistically about journalism. And especially when I see journalists, much older than we are, continuing to do big things in our uncertain industry.Inspiration is not hard to find. One of my mentors, Bob Butler, is a laid off journalist. Yes, that's right. He was laid off from a regular staff position at KCBS San Francisco news radio in 2006. But I see Bob as an example of a journalist who keeps it moving — he's not publically wallowing in negativity or depression over the state of the industry.
Not only has he continued contributing for KCBS, he's been a mainstay for the Chauncey Bailey Project. The project was recently written about in the New York Times.
In addition, he's the president of the Bay Area Black Journalist Association and regional director at the national level.
He's keeping busy. And for me, that's inspiring. Raise a glass to people who triumph over adversity and do damn good work in the process.
Bob Butler (right), with Thomas Peele and Mary Fricker.Photo: New York Times
Labels: inspiration, investigative journalism, layoffs, mentorship, the industry
continue...Wednesday, December 17, 2008
MediaNews execs speak out, stating the obvious
"MediaNews Sees Bad Timing on Newspapers, Not Bad Bet..." reads a NY Times headline.Really? Bad timing? Hmmm ... That's an interesting way to put it.
MediaNews has not had a good year. But then again, neither has Tribune, McClatchy, Gannett ... the list goes on ...
And like this country's president, newspaper execs seem to be allowing sobered introspective reflections to slip from their usually mum lips.
Exhibit A:
Many current and former Mercury News executives say that a lack of investment by Knight Ridder and MediaNews have given the paper a fairly ordinary Web site that has been slow to adopt practices that keep readers coming back many times a day, like publishing articles online well before they appear in print, updating them frequently, blogging and posting videos.For real? Really? Hmmm ... so how long have executives held that opinion? Is this a recent epiphany?
... I'll go out on a limb and assume that said executives are preparing to invest in these "ordinary Web sites that have been slow to adopt practices that keeps readers coming back" ... right? Right.
(Sighs.)
Labels: frustration, layoffs, the industry, Web sites
continue...Thursday, December 11, 2008
Grazed by the Axe
The worst part is watching the names trickle in.Management refused to disclose the names of who was let go, for good reason, I suppose. But on some level, I'd rather just know, not because I want to be in people's business, but because these are my friends, my colleagues -- in some cases, what I consider my family -- being shown the door.
Instead, I have to read names in the paper or on the blogs.
And my heart is broken all over again.
Some of you know I spent a long time trying to get into the place where I work today. And it hasn't been easy staying -- no place is when you're the kid and the minority. But I've been blessed with what I called a "workplace family" -- folks who encouraged me, challenged me, gave me a swift kick in the butt when needed, and quite literally saved my ass when something was about to go down. They encouraged me and protected me, all because they knew, too, the difficulties of being the odd man out.
But now I'm reading their names. On blogs. In the paper.
And now my support system is shattered.
Suddenly I feel like I'm standing alone. And I can't help but to feel a little shattered too.
Labels: broadcasting, dying newsroom, layoffs, mentorship
continue...Thursday, December 04, 2008
My Name is Marcus And I'm Unemployed
The alarm went off at 8:30am Thursday morning and I hit snooze.Stuffy and congested, the plan was to call out sick and come in the afternoon for a 2:00pm meeting.
But something told me to check the Blackberry to make sure there were no important e-mails.
Anytime you get a company e-mail from Debra Lee before 9:00AM, it's not good news.
Viacom had announced they were letting 850 employees go and that BET would be affected as a result.
One of those 850 employees is me.
Before you break out the box of tissues and offer your hugs (I'll take your hugs if you're hot), believe me when I say that I'm OK.
(If you have talked to me in the last 11 months, you will know that I'm really OK)
God works in mysterious ways and I look at this as an opportunity for a change of scenery and a fresh start in my career.
If you were expecting an angry Black man rant about how the man screwed me over, I apologize.
Now time to catch up on my DVR ...
Labels: layoffs
continue...Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Keep going until you reach the other side
This was about as close to marching orders as we'd get. At least in the near future.My coworkers and I filed slowly into the small conference room in our office, the managing editor of our paper seated on one side of the oval table. For the next hour, she'd tell us what she knew, which wasn't much, but it was something.
All of the bureaus were closing, she said. And the two remote offices would be housed temporarily downtown in our office and another down the hall. The first reporter from South County arrived today.
In essence, the days of hyperlocal coverage writing about the minutae of Town Council and School Committee meetings -- were over, she said. The boss wanted us all to write A1 stories. On our beats, some of the bigger stories would survive, while some of our smaller communities may not even see the light of day in the new paper. We probably won't tell the readers that we're doing away with the zoned editions she said. We should be prepared for the deluge of calls we'll recieve next week.
"We are reinventing the paper and it could be exciting," she told us. "But to get to exciting, we're gonna have to go through a whole lot of hell."
That was one thing we all knew.
In the days since the restructuring began, they've switched beats on some reporters, pulling a municipal reporter onto the blog, and moving the Providence reporter to a national sports beat.
Right. My thoughts exactly.
How we'll cover news in the future is largely unsettled, she said. We may do it by town, but more feasibly, we'll do topical coverage. We should get our dibs in now with beat preferance, so when the New World Order comes, at least our desires have been made known.
I just sent my e-mail to her, telling her that in a perfect world, I'd like to cover either legal affairs, education or news features, in that order.
As I watched my coworkers pepper her with questions, I tried not to be mad. I knew I had no room to be afraid -- everyone else was chalky with fear. I empathized with the M.E., having to go into rooms full of reporters with few, if any, answers. Not a job I'd envy. At least not now.
I tried to analyze what this new world would mean for me, an average reporter. I'd be competing against all of my coworkers for the same amount of space that's in a Monday paper. Ideally, it means I can write what I want, when I want, taking the time to craft stories and delve deeply into subjects. Realistically, it means that I've got to find better stories to tell or find myself squeezed out of the paper.
I sure hope I'll find them by the time we get to the other side.
Labels: fear, for journalism's sake, I-ain't-never-scared, industry analysis, Job survival, layoffs, the industry
continue...Friday, September 26, 2008
Layoff Blues
I just got really scared.I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot outside my job with the car running and Raphael Saadiq playing on the stereo and I feel like I’m about to hyperventilate.
I just left one coworker in my office while she was printing out her resume to potentially shop around at a job fair this weekend. My boss skipped out early. She was laid off yesterday and has been mentally checked out since. The guy in our office who got laid off kept plugging away at stories today, just like always, except that his flow was constantly interrupted with phone calls he’d take in the hallway. My guess is job offers and financial matters.
This is what it feels like to be in a dying industry, I suppose.
At first, I was angry. Angry that all 30 of our cuts had to be borne by the news department. Angry at management for refusing to acknowledge the value we add. That without us, the paper will be nothing but a multi-page advertisement. But they don’t listen to me.
In two weeks, my job will change. They told us that the bureau system as we know it will be gone as of Oct. 10. I turn 25 two days later and return to work that Monday to a newsroom full of uncertainty and trepidation. Happy Birthday to me.
I was talking to a photographer when the first layoffs were announced. He asked me if I’d been shopping my resume around. I had, I told him, but there was a problem. The places I’d been shopping it to were having hiring freezes or worse – the people I’d been cultivating relationships with for years had taken buyouts. He told me I’d be fine. I told him I have no marketable skills. He laughed and tried to reassure me that I did.
I don’t.
I’m a newspaper reporter in a world that increasingly is telling us that they don’t want to read newspapers. I’m a newspaper reporter in a business where management feels it’s more prudent to cut news staff than advertising or production. I’m an average news reporter in an economy where I’m competing for the few available jobs with people much more experienced and way more talented than I.
Thank God that for now, at least, I’m safe. I know that when the next round of layoffs comes, I’ll be in the class that gets cut. And I have no idea where I’d go. What do you do when the industry you fell in love with as a kid doesn’t want you anymore?
I have some management experience, filling in as bureau chief when my boss was out. Maybe I can manage a coffee shop. I call in updates and write breaking news for the blog sometimes. Maybe I can be a telemarketer. I have years of practice taking things that people say and do and rehashing them for a new audience. Maybe I can be a history teacher.
I was talking to one of my old competitors the other day. She left the local paper and went to go work for the local theatre company in the marketing department. She gave me comp tickets to a show the other night. Says she loves her job. Maybe she has the right idea.
What scared me most as I packed up my things and walked to my car, what has me writing this blog on my laptop in my Cavalier, is that it’s not so much that I can’t do anything else. It’s that I don’t want to. But I’m coming to realize increasingly that wanting something doesn’t make it so.
Labels: dismay, dying newsroom, layoffs, the industry
continue...Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Layoffs
I'm not really sure how to start this post. So I just will.Today, the company announced that they are laying off 30 people from the news department.
We knew the layoffs were coming. We knew they'd happen by mid October, but that's all they told us. We didn't know how the cuts were coming, who would be affected, or anything.
I knew something was wrong as I walked up to the building this afternoon. I'd just come from a water rate hike hearing and was coming to the newsroom for the first time today. I saw a photographer standing outside on his cell phone, clutching a Guild newsletter. I knew we'd gotten some news about the layoffs. I just didn't know what.
As I made my way up to my office, I got a text from a friend in the main newsroom.
When were you hired? I just lost my job.
I rushed downstairs to her hangout spot -- a place behind the building she often goes to smoke handrolled cigarettes -- to make sure she was okay. She seemed fine, and I didn't really know what else to do. She wanted to get back into the newsroom to finish the day. So I let her. Upstairs in my office, I learned that one of my newly-married, soon-to-be a father, coworkers had been laid off.
I was hired in January 2006 officially. The cut off date for layoffs was May 30, 2006. Just a few months seperated me from unemployment. They took all of the part-timers firts, and a handful of full-timers got caught in the mix as well.
I've never felt so bad about having a job.
Labels: dismay, dying newsroom, layoffs, writer's guild
continue...Friday, September 12, 2008
It took a lot not to cry today
It was as quiet as one can expect any newsroom to be.Phones went unanswered and for about an hour today, all of our attention was focused.
Today, we said good luck to some of our colleagues who took the buyout my paper offered last month. As editors read the departing reporters bios and shared anecdotes of their time here, I realized most of them had been here longer than I'd been alive.
There was cake. There were speeches. There were lots and lots of jokes and funny stories. And there were tears. And lots and lots of hugs.
Everyone seemed happy to go. They'll spend their time writing books. Or at Red Sox games. Or just living their lives greatly. They said so. But for us who will show up to work on Monday without them, there's a void.
I went downstairs earlier to say goodbye to a few of my favorite reporters who are taking the buyout. Someone asked what the mood was in the bureaus. My paper announced buyouts in August, and come October, we will have layoffs. No one knows how many, nor the method that will be used to make the cuts. I told them that right now, we weren't uneasy just because there were too many variables to worry about. We'll be concerned when we have more information.
But when I went upstairs, I couldn't help looking at the classified ads that show up on the various listserves I belong to. I wanted to at least know what was out there. Because if I go, it won't be by choice, like these guys.
Labels: buyouts, dying newsroom, layoffs, quitting time, the industry
continue...Thursday, August 21, 2008
It's always darkest before dawn
For some reason, I thought I was safe.My paper had gone through buyouts in the years before I came to call it home. Our staff was already so thin, I knew that really, there was no fat to trim.
At Unity, as I went booth to booth hearing tales of recruiters who wanted to hire, but couldn't, I had a little bit of satisfaction in the fact that I had a job and for the moment, my newsroom was remaining in tact.
Not so much anymore.
Midnight was the deadline for employees willing to take the buyout that the company offered days after I left UNITY. I got the call that we'd be trimming some lean while I was at a court reporting conference in Reno.
I stepped out of the session to have my boss read me details on my buyout offer. I don't remember the details, but I think it was something like $4,000 and maybe another $4,000 in medical coverage.
Peanuts, even by industry standards.
So I chalked it up and readied myself for whatever would come. I had good clips and contacts, so I'd milk them dry if I got laid off. Until then, I was going to go back to my job and work like nothing had changed.
But things are changing.
Come Sept. 12 or so, the 22 people who took the buyout across the company (here, Dallas and Riverside, Calif.) will be gone. Among them will be my friends, Scotty and Mark. And I almost think I'm more sad about seeing them go than anything. I would barely make it past the cubicle pod they shared when I went down to visit the newsroom because I'd be wrapped up in conversations with them, laughing and joking and somehow learning at the same time. I'm going to miss that.
The 22 people who took the buyout may not be enough, as the company hoped for 10 more to take the offer. We'll find out in the coming days if we'll resort to layoffs. If so, part-timers will go first, and then jobs will be taken by seniority.
Mark spoke with The Providence Phoenix and offered these thoughts on the buyout. Says The Phoenix: He described how a previous buyout opened fresh paths for him, including the chance to cover the State House, and in terms of younger staffers, he says, "Now it's going to be their opportunity."
My God, I hope he's right.
Labels: buyouts, dismay, dying newsroom, layoffs, the industry, union, writer's guild
continue...Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Say that, say that!
Found this on Romenesko:A morning paper should have a busy newsroom at 11 p.m.
Hartford Courant Colin McEnroe says nobody has ever suggested it would be a good idea if he ran a newspaper. Still, he has some ideas for the "new" Hartford Courant. "The building should be damn near empty until 2 p.m. and full until 11," he writes. "Somewhere a long the way, newspaper jobs gradually started to resemble other white collar jobs. We all wanted to go home to the suburbs, have a glass of wine, interact with our spouses and kids. ... If the news staff is going to be an elite strike force, it had better include a lot of workaholics and night owls."
(*speaks in tongues)
Some of Colin's tips to journalists in dying newsrooms:
1. REGAIN YOUR SENSE OF URGENCY.
4. GET SMARTER ABOUT THE WEB.
5. BRACE YOURSELF. (Love that one!)
Read the full blog post, here.
Labels: buyouts, dying newsroom, journalism, layoffs
continue...