Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Al Diamon
Goodbye Institutional Memory
The bad news: About 25 percent of the paper’s reporting staff has applied for and been accepted in a voluntary termination program. According to a reliable source, at least six reporters, including several of the most experienced, have until 5 p.m. on Wednesday, June 25 to let the company know if they’ll call it quits. One other reporter has already resigned. Several others are on a waiting list if any of the six decide to back out of the deal and stay.
The Press Herald announced in early June that it would eliminate 35 positions across the company by July 1. It offered the voluntary plan as a way to reduce the number of forced layoffs. It appears about 25 workers who applied for that deal have been accepted. Besides the reporters, they include several advertising sales representatives, one editorial artist, one advertising artist, one photographer and at least two managers.
“It won’t mitigate the layoffs altogether, but it will eliminate most of them,” said the source.
Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 in Permalink
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Reader Comments:
You're wrong about the photographer.
The two managers who applied for the buyout -- and have been accepted -- are a long-time and respected Night City Editor and a former Photo Editor who was unhappily moved to online to take on the mechanical job of posting articles from the print to the Web. This is just another example of bad business practices by the Blethen Empire. The top dawgs still haven't figured out that there is value in the talent and skills of their top people, and that they need to wisely manage and deploy those resources.
The Night City editor is respected .. the other one, not so much.