Newsday eliminates Powell, Howard

In another blow to the industry, sports columnists Johnette Howard and Shaun Powell had their positions eliminated this morning.

 

Wow!

 

Man, those are big losses.

 

Horrible.

 

I'm sure their salaries had nothing to do with it. - Buckweaver.

 

Were they given the option of:

a. salary givebacks?
b. beat coverage?
c. different roles in some other dept.?

Not that they'd agree to any of that, but it would be a way to keep talented people on board, allow them to stay employed at a basic level and sneakily shift some onus onto the employees, who at that point would be "declining" an opportunity to stay.

 

I'd be stunned if they were offered anything other than their walking papers.

 

It is my understanding that they were given the option of staying on in another capacity, with a lesser job class. Not sure what the upshot is yet. They just found out this morning.

 

Is this related to them ripping MSG management in the past?

 

Wow, what if that's it? What if, under the guise of a dying industry and a shit economy, they were dumped simply as Dolan revenge?

 

So much for the thinking that escaping Tribune was a good thing for Newsday

 

In 2002 I left SI to write features for Newsday because they promised "2,000-to-4,000-word features" and a "goal of winning Pulitzers." Those are the exact words uttered by my hiring editor.

I left two years later, when I was told they wanted more 500-word "trends pieces" on stuff like Jessica Simpson's latest hair style.

There is no newspaper in America (that I've seen, at least) that represents the industry's self-inflicted demise more than Newsday. The powers that be decided long ago that in order to compete with the internet and TV, the paper had to become, in a sense, the internet and TV. No depth. Short and snappy and quick. Grab the reader's attention, because you only have 45 seconds before he/she jumps in the shower. Etc ... etc.

This, to me, is the lowest low. Two great writers and Newsday staples, let go under the philosophy that, "Eh, the readers won't notice. We can give them Powell, Howard or a 23-year-old schlub making $28,000 ... and the sheep will still buy our product.

I'm ranting, because I'm incensed.