Fate of Rocky Mountain News to be announced

Amazing that today is the two-month mark of the last edition. Time sure did fly by. After today, we officially are off Scripps' books. We get a final check on May 8. Tonight, there is a meeting of the Guild to go over what severance package has been offered and then a vote to accept or reject. No details have been leaked.

 

Probably none, so I suspect it will be accepted.

 

Some information on the severance package that was presented tonight. I expect it to be ratified easily. And I suspect Michael Roberts will have more information tomorrow because this story was posted as the meeting was starting.

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2009/04/ew_scripps_former_rocky_mounta.php

 

They didn't do it that way. It was a lump sum paid out by Scripps and the Guild did a sliding scale based on years of service, with a cap for those at 30-plus years.

But it worked out that if you worked there many decades, you didn't get as much per year of service as those who didn't work there as long.

I had five-plus years. I'm not complaining. Others who have 25, 30 years, there were some grumblings, but as one very well-respected colleague said, "I'm not happy, but I'll get over it."

For me, it's a lot more than I was counting on. It's all gravy. There was nothing in the contract that said Scripps had to pay one dime. But they did. A lot more than one dime.

I missed out on a little more because I started in January 2004 and it was based on the calendar year of your start date. And previous work at the paper (say you worked there, left, then came back) counted. As did previous work at other Scripps papers.

This does not include management, and I heard they were getting screwed. Don't know what this agreement will have on them.

The Guild approved the proposal unamiously, I just found out in an e-mail.

 

John Temple went back to the newsroom yesterday, the last day employees were on the payroll, and shot a short video.

http://www.johntemple.net/2009/04/what-empty-newsroom-can-remind-us.html

 

Also, it's my understanding that management will get one week for every six months of service, which is in Scripps' history and a lot better than other things I was hearing they were going to get.