Oklahoma State beat writer | The Oklahoman (Oklahoma City)

Guy uproots his whole life and it means nothing to the bean counters.

 

Did he start in the job/move to the area already? If so, they better pay him something.

 

Given situations like this, I'm not sure how anyone could go into the application process at one of these papers and feel even a little bit safe.

 

This is a pretty terrible situation. But this is also why you never quit a job until all the paperwork is official. I've heard several stories of someone interviewing for a job/accepting an offer, only for it to close because of a hiring freeze. It's another nasty part of the industry.

 

He should sue The Oklahoman, honestly

 

What a damned outrage.

 

Exactly. It really sucks, but can't imagine Gatehouse would do this without being 100 percent in the clear legally to do so.

Heard the kid signed a lease and everything, which makes it even worse if he has to buy his way out of that.

 

For everything they’ve got

 

Yeah, no. That's an easy way for this kid to lose even more money. He'd have to pay for a lawyer and the court fees when he inevitably loses his case. So stop.

I imagine the newspaper, like any business, has every right to withdraw job offers to applicants. If he hadn't filled out paperwork yet, then he wasn't an employee yet. There was no signed contract between the two. He could've changed his mind before starting, as many people have done (remember the Tyler Dunne saga, anyone?), and the newspaper can change its mind. There's no legal ground here for him to sue and win.

The ONLY legal ground would be if he could argue that the Oklahoman offer led to his resigning at his most recent employer, thus leading to unemployment and a loss of wages/salary. One issue: He resigned from his most recent employer before he ever got the job offer from the Oklahoman. He even admits this in the Poynter article. So there's no cause-and-effect relationship.

I imagine any apartment complex or housing situation would understand his situation and let him out of the lease. At the very least, I'd hope they would (or the Oklahoman would step in and pay it).

 

What GateHouse did here is pretty outrageous, and I feel for the young man, but I’ll bet this leads him to something even better now that the industry knows his unfortunate situation.