Plain Dealer guts union

[ChrisLong]

This is what you get when you gut your copy editors. This is no knock against Cabot, either. She should be backed up better than this.

See Gregg Williams' goodbye message to Browns fans: 'It has been an honor to coach this team'

Cabot deserves to be criticized. Anybody in this business should be able to write the first sentence of a story without a critical mistake or omission. And she knows there are no copyeditors.

 

[sporty]

ChrisLong there you go letting logic get in the way of a good argument. You are right about her catching that in her lede, but damn it would be nice to have some backup to cover your butt.

 

[cake in the rain]

This is what you get when you gut your copy editors. This is no knock against Cabot, either. She should be backed up better than this.

See Gregg Williams' goodbye message to Browns fans: 'It has been an honor to coach this team'

There have been no "copy editors" in any real sense at Cleveland.com for several years.

The people whose jobs were recently eliminated were working on the print edition.

 

[Fredrick]

Fredrick hates suits. Fredrick loves copy editors. News organizations are really blowing it (again) by dumping so many copy editors. Nobody is perfect and with many writers/editors working 70 or more hours a week just to keep their jobs ... mistakes can and will happen. This is another sign of unqualified people running news organizations. These people are investor types. They know nothing about writing, reporting or copy editing or layout. Obviously the suits who have no background in journalism think copy editors do nothing but steal money. They are wrong. Funny to witness newspapers becoming the way of dinosaurs and rotary phones.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Reporters get theirs:

Plain Dealer Editor Announces 12 Reporters and Editors Will Lose Jobs, Decimating Print Newsroom

 

[LanceyHoward]

Reporters get theirs:

Plain Dealer Editor Announces 12 Reporters and Editors Will Lose Jobs, Decimating Print Newsroom

The Guild is down to about 30 people. Are there other reporters not covered by the Guild. How many will be left in sports, or is that still unknown?

Gatehouse paid 16 million last year for Akron. I still don't see how Newhouse could have passed that up given the opportunity to consolidate the two largest papers in the region.

 

[cake in the rain]

The Guild is down to about 30 people. Are there other reporters not covered by the Guild. How many will be left in sports, or is that still unknown?

Gatehouse paid 16 million last year for Akron. I still don't see how Newhouse could have passed that up given the opportunity to consolidate the two largest papers in the region.

No one who works at Cleveland.com is in the union. The Guild only covers the dwindling number of people employed by the Plain Dealer. (It's a subtle distinction, but you can see in the byline who their "official" employer is). I'm not aware of a single prominent sports reporter who is under the umbrella of the Plain Dealer, although I'm sure there must be at least one or two left. Maybe Terry Pluto?

 

[Regan MacNeil]

What's stopping the dotcom employees from unionizing?

 

[Junkie]

What's stopping the dotcom employees from unionizing?

An overwhelming lack of leverage.

 

[LanceyHoward]

What's stopping the dotcom employees from unionizing?

In the dotcom era the jobs could easily moved elsewhere, including the Philippines. I am surprised that design centers have not already move there. I was in the Philippines four years ago and the design of the newspapers appeared OK.

P.S. I am totally serious and not trying to be snarky.

 

[sporty]

When did the PD union give up the mandate that no writer who is not in the union is allowed to write for or do anything for the newspaper? I remember as a high school senior wanting to do my volunteer senior project there (answering phones, filing or whatever they wanted me to do) for a month and while the sports editor wanted to I was not allowed because you had to be a member of the union to touch a computer or the phones there. When the union gave up that mandate they might as well had folded then.