Today was one of the toughest days I've had in ten years at the P-D. As I mentioned in a previous post, another early-retirement incentive was offered, this time for 60 people company-wide. Our new fiscal year begins in October, so today was the last day for the majority of the early-retirees. Our newsroom took the biggest hit by far, with over 2/3 of them coming out of there. Many talented writers, reporters, photographers, and editors are now gone. I mean, the guy who answers the phone in the sports department is gone. What stings the most is the loss of 6(!) photographers, all of whom I was well-acquainted with because I support their Macintosh computers. They were more than just users, or "customers" to me.
[A real "sucker-punch" came in the form of a company-wide e-mail that was sent from our CEO this morning. I'm Not Kidding - it was in the form of a press release, detailing exactly how much money this buyout is costing the company but also trumpeting the amount of money that this buyout will save the company. I'm no expert, but I'd have saved this e-mail for next week]
Bill McClellan sized up the situation pretty well in his column today. Basically, the Internet has changed the way people get their news, plain and simple. Less people buy newspapers, thus advertisers spend less on print advertising, thus profit margins are reduced, making newspaper company stockholders very nervous, creating a need to cut costs wherever and however possible. I don't attempt to understand the logic of it all, I just know a lot of good people are leaving their newspaper careers too soon. I don't blame them for taking an offer they couldn't refuse. Moreover, this is not unique to my employer; it's happening to large newspapers all over the country. Here's a link to Bill's column. It's well worth the reading.
The evolution of newspapers can be traced to two meteors
1 comment:
i feel your pain. nobody has so many friends it doesn't hurt to have several disappear in one day!
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