Plans for the "Hiatus"?

Then you're clearly not paying attention to what's going on in the world. Everywhere I look, there's a story about a hospital official begging for supplies. In my city, the major hospital officials are in the news every day handling media requests, and I'm only in a moderately hit area.

Business owners may not talk about how close they are to the ledge, but some may be offering new services, organizing donations, or otherwise doing something newsworthy.

 

So I'm that good?

 

FIFY.

 

The Advocate in Baton Rouge is "temporarily furloughing" about 40 people, most of them in sports and features.

A challenging time for The Advocate, and for Louisiana

 

Are newspapers going to survive this? We have editors and publishers advocating that journalists are essential employees, and that's great, but advertising has to be starting to dry up. We're going down to few pages in sports and variety/entertainment because of the lack of content, but I'm afraid the other shoe's going to drop soon and there will be more furloughs/cuts/layoffs coming. I hope I'm wrong.

 

Hope you’re wrong, too.

 

Dumb, dumb, dumb. Fredrick gets on the suits a lot. I know this. But I want you all, even you suits, to PLEASE pause and consider how clueless they are. SPORTS coverage is NEEDED now more than ever, Sports writers (believe it or not, suits) are some of the BEST, smartest journalists alive because they cut through the bullcrap every day, pardon my french. To furlough sports writers is pathetic. Even worse is to cut them to four day weeks. Why? Because sports writers already work 60 and get paid for 40 in many/most places. Pride forces them to eat those hours.
You should be ashamed of yourselves, suits, for going after the brilliant sports writers. Fredrick gets so upset. Please understand where I am coming from. My passion for sportswriters/copy editors/photographers in sports and disdain for clueless suits! Please consider my position.
(I"m assuming if one is furloughed they can keep their medical coverage which is the only plus).

 

You're making me root for the suits.

 

No? A lot of papers have been ready to collapse at the first sign of a stiff breeze, and this is certainly that.

I would expect across-the-staff pay cuts and hours reductions, at least temporarily. I know some papers are about to deploy that, probably one furlough day per week. That's probably the most generous possible option because I'd think income has to be absolutely devastated right now.

 

One furlough day a week frankly should be illegal at least in the newspaper business because of wink/wink work 70 and get paid for 40. You just wait. A writer takes a furlough day and something happens critical to coverage. ... you can bet the writer will hop on the story. Suits will agree it is the right thing to do and suspend the furlough day.

 

This is happening at our shop. The boss told us there will be layoffs in the newsroom, and that the paper will soon just be one section, instead of four. There's already been layoffs in the production and advertising departments.

I asked point-blank if we're going to reduce our print schedule from seven days a week, and he said no. But there will be much fewer pages to lay out and things like sport pages and even the comics could be cut.

 

This is so easy and tragic and will lead to the more immediate death of newspapers. News people think of sports as the toy section, covering games. Games have been canceled, get rid of our sports people NOW. Save money. I guess they can always hire people at 1/5 the cost when they realize they were dumb to get rid of all the sports people. This is good news for recent grads. 22,000 dollar beat writers at major metros are coming if sports ever resume.