LAT cutting 75 more

How is it that the Times brings in Broderick Turner from the Riverside Press-Enterprise last month to cover the Lakers then fires Bonk, White and others?
Turner does a great job with the Lakers, but shouldn't more loyalty have been shown to longtime employees?

 

Loyalty? There's no loyalty in journalism.

Turner (who does a great job BTW) was probably a very cheap hire by LAT standards. Bonk was almost definitely a much, much higher salary. At a lot of these places, cutting one big salary is easier to do than cutting two staffers who are "cheaper"

You could argue the same thing in Orlando, when Tim Povtak and his 29 years of excellence and experience was sent packing over the hordes of wunderkind that have been hired over the last couple years.

The same thing held true in Tampa when they cut two people with about a decade of experience over a bunch of prep writers who probably make $20K a year less.

 

Too bad they wouldn't give Bonk or White or whomever the option to stay on but at whatever salary they offered to Turner.

So it sucks to be a veteran in this business, and it sucks to be a young person if the young person plans to get any older, get any raises or both, for someday they will come after you and your salary too.

Oh how I wish that an entire newsroom in L.A. or Chicago could quit and walk out at the same time, leaving the beancounters and the owner (Zell) with nothing but their #@*%! in their hands. Maybe the old fart would opt for a 100/0 advertising-to-editorial ratio.

 

In all likelihood, the Times sports section was looking for another basketball writer. Remember, it also recently lost Jonathan Abrams to the NYT, and Turner's hiring, perhaps, was an attempt to keep/replace numbers/people, as much as possible, in anticipation of the loss of those gone with this latest round of cuts.

Turner's arrival also could have been a message to former Lakers writer Steve Springer, who, I understand, has also taken the latest buyout/been laid off.

 

Steve is a good guy, from what I know of him, so I'm not sure he needed to be having any message sent by his employer. Other than, of course, you're screwed because you don't make entry-level pay.

 

I have to believe that Bill Dwyre has or will give it up .......
No knock on Bill, who is a legend.

 

Pretty sure one of my good friends from college--and the best journalist I've ever known--got the ax today.

Go fuck yourself, Sam. Not a fiery enough place in hell for him.

 

I know a couple SEs in Tribune Co have offered themselves up for buyouts and been rejected.

 

What the hell is the shitheads' logic in that?

 

Guys in the expensive suits always need someone to swing the bloody ax. Or at least point to the best place on each neck to whack.