New York Daily News

Looks like Drip was close!

 

I grew up in New York and religiously read the News and the Post ... backwards of course. I'm numb and I'm figuratively weeping for my hometown, the fine journos who lost their job and our once great industry.

 

Wow!

 

About the time the Singletons of the world started buying up papers and the bottom feeders started buying bigger names and loading up on debt, it isn't a far cry from the plotline of The Producers.
Most of these papers bought up in the last 20 years were never going to be "paid off" - the investors merely sought the month to month skim of profits. Pay yourselves a healthy "management fee," keep revenues ahead of costs just enough to pay the interest and by the time you've sucked all the value out of the company, there is nothing left for the creditors to reclaim.

 

Heard some details about the situation last night. The sports reporter had been there for 40 years and had covered everything; he'd even been one of the section's columnists for a while. Along with being a fine writer and reporter, he switched to the copy desk in mid-career and did an excellent job in that role for many years before going back to writing.

One of the others let go was an assistant metro editor who had been there since 1975 and was No. 1 in newsroom longevity. She learned her fate last Friday -- the day before her vacation began -- and was ordered to shut up about it because they wanted to wait a few days before telling the others they'd been laid off.

In the meantime, the production desks in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando -- which were supposed to go away in May or June -- still exist. According to a few folks in Lauderdale, it didn't occur to anybody at Tribune until a week or so ago that they'd need a transition plan for moving editing and design from the two Florida papers to Chicago. Such a plan will take about six weeks to implement, so the desks will be around until September. One of my friends has his work anniversary in mid-August and is not unhappy that he'll receive a larger severance payout thanks to the company's stupidity.

 

A standing ovation for Mr. Kay.

 

Best, most impassioned defense of our industry I've ever heard. May Tronc bean-counters go to hell and have to listen to this on a loop for eternity.

 

Interesting details; thanks. I would guess it could take longer than six weeks to figure out the transition for the desks. Or they'll just do it and it'll be a total cluster----.

 

I don't know if I have mentioned this, but I had my own Tronc tale.

A week after our department in Harrisburg was outsourced, I interviewed at the Baltimore Sun. I would have been able to commute (70 minutes). The ME/design offered me the job that day. The next week, Tronc took over in Baltimore and instituted an immediate hiring freeze. And thus began a happy second career at the Pennsylvania Department of Aging.

 

OH, yeah. Although I kind of liked the idea of grabbing lunch along Old York Road on the way to work.