gannett plans to layoff 3,000 by december.

I would have never seen this coming. I remember reading Kevin while growing up and loving his stuff. He might have lost a little on his fastball, but always a tremendous read.

 

To answer the questions in order ...

Yes.
Nobody.
Not enough.

 

WFW, Roob.
I think of the line from "Broadcast News" when one of the people doing the layoffs asked one guy if there was anything he could do and the response was:
"You can die soon".
I think that applies here.

 

I can't believe some of the names I'm seeing among those let go. Good writers and reporters. Good people. Very sad. I wish them well.

 

Most magazines have been doing it that way for decades.

 

Here's a blog entry from Battle Creek Enquirer.

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=PluckPersona&U=9c676de669f6458b96dcbabe25a6348f&plckPersonaPage=BlogViewPost&plckUserId=9c676de669f6458b96dcbabe25a6348f&plckPostId=Blog%3a9c676de669f6458b96dcbabe25a6348fPost%3a9009eaa8-675f-420c-a2b6-b955acd1d277&plckController=PersonaBlog&plckScript=personaScript&plckElementId=personaDest

Suffice to say it's not the best to you each morning from Kellogg's. Fifty people gone, mostly because BCE will be printed in Lansing and copy editing done in Port Huron. Jeebus Cripes.

 

Fort Myers, Fla., is also cutting. No idea on numbers, but a friend was among the casualties, her husband having already been dumped in the earlier cuts.

Making it even more delightful is that the layoffs take effect Dec. 27. Merry Fucking Christmas.

 

Gone from the News Journal in NJ -- Kevin Noonan, Kristian Pope, Tom Coburn.

 

Ahh, just great. Layoffs at Christmas. :'(

 

I was late hearing about this. Just want to echo Roob's comments. So sorry for all these guys. Wish I had a way of helping. And I don't think the "Broadcast News" advice cited above would do much good ... if I die, there's no way they're replacing me. They'll just pocket the savings and move on.
I can't imagine how the ones of us who haven't been dispatched yet are just going to keep shrugging our shoulders and showing up in press rooms that keep getting emptier and emptier ... there's another movie scene I'm thinking of, at the beginning of "Robocop," when the first generation robot goes awry and kills a guy in the conference room during the demonstration. A couple of guys are leaving afterward in an elevator and one of them theorizes that it's too bad about the guy that got killed, but, hey, "that's life in the big city."
I think "survivor's guilt" is going to be a big topic in our industry for a while ... until their aren't any survivors left to feel guilty.

 

Survivor's guilt will last until you get the next "we'll have to do more with less" memo.

 

Fuck. That's 50 people at a 25k(ish) paper.

That's damn near the whole staff.

They were doing a lot of cool things adapting to the web and doing multimedia stuff. Tons of photo galleries, and I'm pretty sure they were doing live newscasts on their website. Tremendous for a paper that size. The only other paper in Michigan that does that is the freep.