68 Philadelphia Inquirer newsroom layoffs

True but the future is very gloomy. Declining circulation and drop of advertising revenue is making it look good in the crosshairs.

 

I have next to me a hard copy of the Inky, and it still is a very good newspaper. No doubt there are some glitches that would be apparent to regular readers and especially to the people who work there, but the folks there deserve a lot of credit for making it look a lot easier than it probably is. Great job, Inky people! Be proud of yourselves.

 

Don't say that too loud, Frank -- before you know it, Jim Jenks won't have a deputy SE to type in that agate; he'll be doing it himself.

 

Agreed. I would guess morale isn't very good. I just thought the survivors deserved some encouragement for putting out a good product under bad conditions, that's all. I picked up the paper expecting an abortion and it wasn't.

 

We get it here daily, and I'm impressed with how they've kept their head above water.

 

While the layoffs have been a problem, it's just a matter of reassigning people and having other people really works for a living. The paper is going to come out if its one person there or 1,000.

 

In looking at that list of sports layoffs, really, it's more like nine copy editors. I don't know the structure there, but losing a slot person and a layout person is two more off the copy desk. Plus the agate person. So that's 10 people off the desk. At my 170K circ., that's three more people (management not included) than our entire desk crew. In fact, if we laid off 15 in sports, as the Inky did, we'd only have three people left in the entire department.

I agree with Zeke -- who the hell is putting this product out? Overtime, for all my friends. Or does the Inky not pay OT now?

 

In spite of the layoffs, and people like spnited and frank_ridgeway know very well, the Inky is a professional place. The job gets done. There is snipping and back biting and all the other crud, but the bottom line is that the product gets out.

 

And for that, they should be commended.

 

No commendation is necessary. It's their job. It's what they are paid very well to do. No one is pleased with what has happened but the feeling is you don't want to be one of those now on the unemployment line.

 

Absolutely, Boots. I agree with you, for the most part, on that point as well. It just seems that a skeleton crew is putting the section out, and doing it well by some of the aforementioned accounts, so I thought a positive word toward them was in order. I'm not trying to gloss over the fact that they're lucky they are still gainfully employed, and I definitely am more sympathetic to those let go. So your point is well taken.

 

Sure. Point taken, Boots. However, I've been a few places at the tail end of their golden era when, for whatever reason, some top talent left or there were cutbacks and the place went into a decline. It's easy to lose perspective and think that your product now sucks and that everyone in the biz not only thinks your paper sucks, but that you suck, too, or you wouldn't still be there, you'd have moved on to a better place. Which, of course, is crazy, but that's what can happen when morale sinks and everyone feeds off each other's misery. I just wanted the survivors to know that from the outside it doesn't look as grim as it looks from the inside. They're doing good work.