'Bloody Monday at Kansas City Star'

Simon's gonna kick your ass for leading him down this path.

I keed. But it is sad that a way of life is fading away. And I keep thinking back to that Star Wars movie in which Natalie Portman decries the Senate as it cheers while giving democracy away. And that's what's going on. Governments, businesses and teams won't do exposes on themselves. Bloggers, even if they have anything resembling journalistic chops, aren't funded well enough to be full-time news gatherers, to have a lawyer on retainer to fight libel or fully use the Freedom of Information Act, to fully track down news far away that affects their main area of interest. Yeah, people have found 75 cents too onerous to pay, maneuvering a paper just too bothersome. And with some bad Faith Popcorning and business planning, an industry was complicit. Yeah, people have gotten their news free.

Soon, we're gonna have news-free. Y'all who decided not to buy actual papers anymore OK with that?

 

Boyce getting cut shows how insane the bean counters are and should be another warning sign to all of us how the end is near. That guy covered a lot of Royals home games if I recall his bylines correctly. So now whomever covers the Royals won't get a break. Or if that person does get a break, it's probably with some intern or somebody like that I'd suspect.
If the KC Star which most agree is a great sports section can cut all these people in addition to the others cut, you just know all Internet editions are coming soon. I mean, how can the KC Star not be making a fucking profit?? Those were a lot of names sliced and somebody said it's not all of them?
Prayers to all of those and their families who are out of work.

 

Definitely sad to hear about "Fitz" and Boyce being cut. As a former KC Star employee, Fitz remains the nicest guy I've dealt with over the years. Always willing to help in any capacity. As for Boyce, despite having the world's second ugliest jumpshot, he was a very hard worker. We'd all be amazed how he'd have a local story on UMKC, but also datelines from Wichita and Emporia on the same day. When I was there, the prep staff included guys like Jason King, Sam Mellinger, Ivan Carter and Larry Graham. I remember referring to Mellinger as "Baby Boyce" one day after he had multiple bylines in the paper. The term later became "Gettin' your Boyce on" among us because it was just comical how much work he did.

I feel bad for both of these guys, and hope everything works out.

 

Shockey, what I'm hoping, and encouraging (without proof at this point but with faith), is that getting out from under the folks who fiddled away this profession while Rome burned will be a very good thing for us. Taking personal control of our destinies, rather than relying on some suit to attend to the important dollars-and-cents stuff while we play around, will be a very good thing for us. Knowing that we're behaving like grown-ups and not feeding off the envy of others for what we do will be a very good thing for us.

Never again letting ourselves get into the position where we can be treated the way so many of our colleagues and us are being treated by people who ought to show more appreciation and sensitivity will be a very good thing for us.

It almost boils down to the "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" saying. We have had our eyes opened. We are awake and, for the most part, still alive. We are better off not enabling the people who did, and continue to do, this to us. They will never again be allowed to fail us.

That's worth a bundle to me, psychologically, and makes me excited about the future. It's never been more in my hands (admittedly with more pressure than ever, too). Mourning is fine and necessary. Living and dreaming is better.

 

What was Kent Pulliam's beat? Name sounds familiar but I can't put a finger on his duties.

 

"Sorry."

"We're as heartbroken by this as you are."

"Get a master's degree in something else."

 

Do these people get anything or just a kick out the door? Benefits continuing a while or anything? From what everybody says about Boyce he was the definition of a great employee. Do they just get kicked away? With nothing?

It would be interesting to see a list of what people remain in that sports department and their duties. I'm just wondering the editor/reporter ratio.

Finally, think of all the great people let loose the past months in newspapers. It was hard enough to get a job before. Think about now. There is no hope for college graduates unless newspapers if they ever again do get an opening just want to hire somebody for 18,000 a year.
Raises? Forget it.
You say they can work online somewhere that there always will be journalism? Again, all the great people out of work, they will eat up such jobs if there are any.
Kids .... get into a different major ... NOW.

 

This is from the Bottom Line site that provided most of the names on this thread:

Q: Any regrets doing the list?
A: Yes. We announced DeAnn Smith was being let go before the paper notified her of that fact. We would not have revealed her name if we had known her superiors had not bothered to tell her in a timely manner. (We also did the same thing with copy editor Les Weatherford during the last layoffs and have apologized profusely to both of them.)


Oops.

 

On the manager's part.

 

Always enjoyed running into David when our paths crossed at MVC/MIAA/Heart stuff over the past 15 years. He is a good dude who worked hard. For small colleges in that area, David was the big-game barometer. Best of luck.

 

yeah, no shit. no way the website should have known about the layoffs before the person was told. Somebody screwed up and should have their ass handed to them.

 

And we are surprised because?

Maybe if one of these sites "erroneously" posted the names of some of these managers then they would get a rude wake-up call as to how this whole thing is supposed to work and not fuck it up the next time around.