Blood in the streets of Hartford and Baltimore

They got rid of too many good people and they can't pay shit to those who left.

So in a misguided attempt to "improve morale," they gave everyone still there these long, convoluted titles to make them feel better about their paycuts and their friends being screwed.

 

Somebody had one hell of a circle jerk coming up with all these ridiculous titles.

When you don't actually produce anything or maybe even do any hands-on work in a newsroom, all you can do is cling to your miserable little new-age title.

 

Never has an industry so willingly butchered itself or shown its own product such contempt.

I don't think you can put it any better than that.

 

Which story was this in, Joe?

It's absolutely the money shot.

 

Bscribe, it was David Simon on his Facebook page.

 

Thank you, D Squared.

 

Did some checking with some friends, and the real reason for all these titles is actually more sinister than you even want to think: A huge number of them are non-guild positions held by former guild employees. So what the Tribune did here was essentially desimate the union. This was as much about destroying organized labor as it was title masturbation. They let it be known that the people at the bottom rungs would be laid off if they didn't show interest in these new positions. When most of the young people took them, it allowed the Tribune to slash deeper into the seniority lists. So older people they couldn't have gotten to otherwise got axed, and the guild got signifficantly smaller all under the ruse of "reorganization." The claim may have been that ad revenue was down so much they needed to trim staff just to survive, but the added bonus will be the eventual desimation of the union.

Embarrassing.

 

Hope the foolish younger workers who took those jobs enjoy those titles for the six months or so before they get the chop.

 

I worked at a union shop where they promoted someone just so they could fire him. It happens.

 

Shit like this really makes me believe the devil walks among us.

 

He does. I can't decide if his name is Sam Zell or Dean Singleton.