Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville to publish three days a week

The only thing those people understand is money. If this model makes money, then I suspect we will see it duplicated. If it loses money (as I suspect), then I suspect we will see something else.

I still maintain the newsroom will be less affected than other department (production, advertising, circulation, etc.). There will still be stories to write, there will be both platforms and we won't have to sweat putting out a paper every single day. (Surely I'm not the only one who ever wanted to take a day off but couldn't because there was a paper to be put together.)

 

I hope not to see this trick repeated mark.

 

I do not want to minimize the pain that the journalists in Alabama are feeling and the hardship and stress that they will be feeling in the forthcoming months.

But the journalists have a skill that can translate to other industries such as public relations. What skill does a guy who has worked on the presses in Huntsville- where the printing is being moved to Birmingham- have that can translate to another industry?

 

Agree 100 percent. No one should minimize how much it sucks to be in those journalists' positions. (I have been there). But we tend to be less dramatic about the pressmen and the ad folks and all the other folks who are also affected.

We're not any more special because we have a college degree. In fact, we're probably better equipped to handle it.

 

Ad salesmen should do all right. All businesses need salespeople, and if you can sell newspaper ads, you can sell anything.

 

So they've started posting the newly created jobs that laid off employees can re-apply for:

http://jobs.al.com/jobs/search/results?CompanyId=840717

 

OK, so this raises an interesting philosophical question for all to ponder.

If a job you really wanted and felt qualified for came open under these circumstances, and you KNEW the previous person had been wrongly laid off/terminated, would you apply?

 

Yes.

But it's sad we're even in this predicament.

 

"wrongly laid off/terminated" implies something illegal and I'll bet a potato to a Pontiac the Newhouse attorneys went over the entire scenario about setting up a new company, terminations and rehires.

If you look at the 600 who were terminated the ages vary and both genders were affected. I think it would be difficult for anyone to successfully argue discrimination.

 

Not so much talking discrimination or anything illegal here. I'll let the lawyers figure that one out.

Let's say, as in the case here, someone gets ditched for whatever reason and a job comes open. Would you apply?

For me, my answer would be only if outside of the company. I would not take someone else's position within the same paper/company unless I knew they wanted out.

Years ago, there were rumors of a certain supervisor who was close to being fired. We were a small department and I was young and working cheap, so it made financial sense to ditch the old man and bump me up a spot and save some money. I told the exec "if you fire him, fire me, too", because I couldn't live with myself if I sat by and did nothing while watching the old guy have the rug pulled out from under him. (He was approaching retirement age and, while I did not agree with his approach to certain things, I wasn't going to be party to taking bread off his table.) For the record, both of us stayed another year.

 

Slappy et al: Does anybody really think that in the case of some sort of catastrophe/major news event that doesn't fall on a "publication" day, that the newspapers won't print? I would think gearing up to put out an "Extra!" edition would be part of the plan. I could be wrong, though.

 

Yeah, I've sort of figured that would be the case.