Newsday eliminates Powell, Howard

That's a personal decision you're not qualified to make for others.

 

MG is making a well-intentioned point, which all here are free to absorb or deflect.

 

And I chose to comment on. There's another option.

 

It's that "however much money they make" part that is headed for a major overhaul, I think. Newspaper publishers (as much as I generally loathe them for their fiddling while Rome burned) shouldn't be obliged to pay substantially more than the next-best alternative, in a free market. And if we're learning anything through all the carnage, it's that there often is no next-best alternative.

No one is immune from pay cuts, or should be, if the company one works for is drowning in red ink. Even union deals can get re-opened, either grudgingly but voluntarily by various worried locals or through bankruptcy reorganization. I'll bet a lot of us are faced with the choice of no job vs. same job-but-for-20%-less-salary, that sort of thing.

Agree 100 percent that Powell and Howard are terrific assets to any paper for which they work. But if they make more money than the company wants to or can afford to pay, they or anyone else receiving premium pay might have to accept personal recessions until (unless) business improves.

 

WFW.

 

That's not accurate, Joe.
Writers at Powell's and Howard's levels could be recruited by any of the other NY papers, by one of the magazines, by other media, as well. The more people like that get cut loose, the more the newspapers are creating the instruments of their demise. It's like a major studio saying it's not making any more movies with big stars, only low-budget deals. No Tom Cruise, etc. Well, somebody out there is going to make a movie with Tom Cruise, and it's probably going to work. Somebody in the content world, whether it's print or internet or broadcast, will make use of extremely talented people who have a following. That might be less true during the months of this recession, but when we get out of it things will change ... and newspapers will be, again, farther behind.

 

Shottie, I'm sorry I did not express myself well. I'm not urging people to leave the newspaper business. I merely wanted to say that people should be prepared for that possibility and spend time preparing. This is an opinion based on personal experience. I was NOT prepared, especially emotionally, for leaving when I did, and made some very bad decisions and non-decisions that did serious damage to my life as an enjoyable experience.
I wouldn't want that to happen to anyone else. So I wanted to caution others to be better able to cope.
That's all I meant. I hope everyone happy in the newspaper business today gets to keep that happiness as long as they want it.

 

Understood. We cool.

 

Davidoff apparently accept a reduction in salary and a lesser job (no longer National baseball columnist). Howard and Powell supposedly rejected similar offers.

 

OK, we're now essentially where I thought we were a few days ago with that post I made, although I didn't know Powell rejected....

 

That's what I have heard, SF, not what I know for sure... which is why I said "supposedly" on Howard nand Powell.

 

That's cool ... this came second hand at the end of last week, and it's why I was hoping somebody who knew for sure would post here.