Layoffs and buyouts at The Seattle Times

A lot of people will get promoted to newly-created position titles that give them all these additional responsibilities but they're still required to do everything else they've already been doing, and for no additional pay?

 

You folks clutching your pearls over losses of editing positions and declines in overall staffing, and being upset that the news product will suffer, have clearly not been paying attention to the marketplace over the past few months.

Here's a hint -- the public doesn't give a damn about clean copy or the amount of content.

 

I hear plenty of complaint about that.

 

This has been going on the last few months? Try years, and the product suffers. Look at what has happened at papers that have slashed copy editors.

 

I know, but my point is "the product suffers" is a non-starter because the public doesn't care about the product's quality. Do you ever read any Internet blogs? Ninety-nine percent of them are filled with copy errors, and yet they are still read daily. Hell, Huff Po even solicits corrections in their blogs.

 

The expectations are different. Not as much as they once were because newspapers have become lax as a rule, but they're still different.

 

Fair point. I think it does hurt credibility, though, and the Huffington Post is a great example of that. But from strictly a financial standpoint, you are correct.

 

Imagine being a public figure or politician and having to answer to something called Buzzfeed or Huffington Post. This country is wacked.

 

Are you telling me Huffington is not a major American city?

 

Sounders writer Matt Pentz is among those moving on, according to his Twitter account.

 

And the new Sounders beat reporter is... Geoff Baker.

 

I took a buyout 3 years ago - ahead of the curve, I knew what was coming and wanted no part of it, thought getting out ahead of the rush would be a good call. It was.
The media situation in Canada is pretty dire, three years later. SO many good people have lost their jobs.

It was 3 weeks per year on salary continuance, I'd been there nearly 15 years. So nearly a full year of salary. I knew it wasn't going to get any better than that.