Layoffs come to LCNI via Elizabethtown, Ky.

Outing alert: This is the paper that terminated me three years ago this week. Of course, now I have a much more lucrative job (from $10.40 an hour to $15.95) with better benefits, 85 percent of all weekends off (I will work some in November and December), all paid holidays off and a much bigger staff (which makes it easier to take vacation days when you want to because there are people to cover for you). Oh, and I now freelance for the biggest paper in the state (wasn't allowed to when I worked in E'town because The Courier-Journal was seen as a competitor). Between non-journo day job and freelance side hustle, clearing more than $10K per year than I was three years ago doing the small-time daily grind.

Anyway, The News-Enterprise six-day morning daily (no Saturday edition) had unannounced layoffs today. At least four in newsroom. Possibly five.

Sports lost writer/designer.
Community news lost aggregator (obits, celebrations, births, school news).
BOTH photographers laid off.
And possibly a news paginator. Don't know if she was already gone. Hadn't kept in touch.

Newsroom down to 11 people. Had 23 people (21 full times and two part timers) when I started as an 18-year-old part timer in 2001.

Down to two in sports. Was 3 full timers and one part timer less than a year ago. Part timer took a full-time job at a sister paper. Now full timer cut. He even had an article in today's edition. Both laid-off photogs had photos appear this week, too.

Sports has no part timers, no freelancers, no design help and no photographers now. While trying to cover eight high schools schools in four counties (assuming one of those schools/counties will be dropped. Possibly two). Don't know if sports section will be merged into news, but hard to put out a 4- or 6- or 8-page section out with that few bodies and that little help.

New personnel list posted:
Personnel

 

Sucks to lose that much. I remember one of your (former) colleagues posting quite a bit on that paper's weekly football wrapup that sounded astounding.

 

Who owns this paper?

 

LCNI. Landmark Community Newspapers.

 

I paginated many of those GameNight tabs. I usually handled standings, stats, schedules, scores and stars of the week.

There were plenty of nights when I didn't get home until 4 a.m. after doing the football section.

@KYSportsWriter was a big part of that.

They never filled KY's spot when he left. So four years ago, we had four people who worked in sports.

As of last night, there are now 2. With no stringers, no part timers, no photogs period in the newsroom, no editing help, no design help and no clerks/interns.

But I'm sure the jagoff publisher and newsroom editor (who both sold me out to keep the local school district happy) will say the paper is doing the same great job it always has.

Thing is, it started rolling downhill when it got rid of me.

It fell off the cliff when @KYSportsWriter left, because he was the best editor of sports stats and articles they had. He didn't miss much.

They hired two guys from out of state who didn't know the area and had no contacts.

I was born and raised here. Grew up reading that paper. @KYSportsWriter was from one county over.

Can't replace that type of institutional knowledge.

 

I thought Landmark was the company that made billions on the Weather Channel and sold off their papers such as Norfolk and Greensboro. Did they hold on to the Kentucky papers?

 

LCNI.com - About LCNI
"Today the company has 51 paid newspapers in 12 states, 32 free newspapers and shoppers, 10 offset commercial printing plants, seven collegiate sports publications, and 13 special publications such as real estate guides and homes magazines."



LCNI.com - Properties

Most of the LCNI papers are in Kentucky or Florida, but it also has some properties in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia

 

Sorry to hear about this. The N-E was one of the best small-city local newspapers out there for many years. I did my first college internship there in the early 1980s, when the current editor was the news editor (3rd in command) and Bob Watkins was the sports editor. Only two doing sports at the time, but the area grew greatly since then. Even the better small newspapers are feeling the big pinch now.

 

Paper has dropped off the map in the past few weeks. The GameNight tab I mentioned above is down to four pages. They cover two games and did a roundup of the rest (in this week's case, five games). John Hardin and Central Hardin, two of their four biggest schools, got four combined paragraphs and no stats. I learned more about their games by just following their school twitter feeds than I did in the paper. That's not good.

The golf scores they ran today didn't add up. The daily area schedule listed one team but no opponent or game time. The 1 p.m. MLB game on TV just listed "regional coverage."

They covered a high school soccer game between two of their coverage schools and no player was quoted. Just grabbed both head coaches and got out of there. Could have had the same stuff by just calling them after the game was over like a staff report.

Making matters worse is the Turret (also known as Inside The Turret and The Gold Standard) was shut down this month. This hurts The News-Enterprise two ways. First, The N-E had the printing contract and was able to upgrade ads that would appear in both The N-E and the Turret/Standard. Second, The N-E will be running more press releases on Fort Knox post happenings since it won't be able to rely on running a Turret/Standard article.

 

Losing the Turret hurts in several ways. When I was there, it was a significant source of income without a whole lot of personnel needs - pretty much sales, layout and printing.

I hate to see this happen to the N-E. I have always held it up as an example of a really good small daily. Somewhere, Bob Watkins is probably shedding a tear, even though he had his run-ins with management over the years.

 

Update: As of last Monday, the separate weekday sports section is no more. Now starting on an odd page in the A section, usually page A7 or A9.

First no filling of a sports position.
Then cutting both photographers plus a sports writer/designer.
Then cutback of pages and local content.
Now cutting the separate section.

All in less than a year.

I have friends there. But if they can't see the writing on the wall, that's partly on them.

I was lucky I was thrown out and even luckier to land a higher paying job with better hours and weekends off so quickly. Others have gotten out on their own.

But if the determined folks staying it out really think they will have jobs 1/3/5 years down the road, I'd like to examine the crystal ball they're using.

 

It's not so much that they're thoughtlessly sticking it out. They're riding it out because they're frightened and unsure about what comes next, and lucrative jobs aren't exactly hanging from trees anymore.

Surely you understand this. Surely you realize that your luck in landing a higher-paying job isn't a given at all. Right?