More from Lean Dean

[Man in the Wilderness]

I know of six people who are taking buyouts. I'm not going to name names, but only one in sports that I know. Photogs are going to take biggest hit, they're already lost two. Lots of people moving around to save jobs. It's a bad day and Friday is going to be even worse.

Just wondering in general and not specifically to the LADN -- if one department is so badly hit by buyouts, will they have to cut extra someplace else as well just to stop the bleeding (and hire someone to replace the voluntarily departed)? If half a sports copy desk takes a buyout offer, how's the next Sunday section getting produced? Would management tell someone they couldn't take the buyout?

[Starman]

I know of six people who are taking buyouts. I'm not going to name names, but only one in sports that I know. Photogs are going to take biggest hit, they're already lost two. Lots of people moving around to save jobs. It's a bad day and Friday is going to be even worse.

Just wondering in general and not specifically to the LADN -- if one department is so badly hit by buyouts, will they have to cut extra someplace else as well just to stop the bleeding (and hire someone to replace the voluntarily departed)? If half a sports copy desk takes a buyout offer, how's the next Sunday section getting produced? Would management tell someone they couldn't take the buyout?

Here's their response to that:

[NightOwl]

The company will offer its usual package of one week's pay for each year of service, minimum of two, maximum of six (1). Those who volunteer or get laid off will also get three months of COBRA healthcare and the company will not contest your unemployment (2).  It will also offer letters of recommendation (1). There is no difference in package whether you volunteer or you're laid off, but volunteering will save someone else's job (3), so if anyone's already got a job lined up, please speak up and do so quickly.

Layoffs will be determined by job, length of service and performance-- I don't have any insight as to who's vulnerable and who isn't. I think the pain will be felt equally across the room. According to Ron, the original plan called for 10 more reporters to lose their jobs, but Dean Singleton personally rejected that plan and asked the cuts be less steep (4).

By the way, if you lose your job, and thus your benefits, I believe you are entitled -- by federal law -- to 18 months of COBRA coverage as long as you make your payments on time each month.

Correct me if I'm wrong on that point, or if Lean Dean is actually offering to pay your first three months of COBRA coverage, but if that's not the case, than this is low-class bullshit disguised as high-class corporate concern.

Of course they're offering you COBRA coverage. It's the law, and it extends 18 months. Douchebag Award if they're actually trying to pull it off as anything else.

But correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Piotr Rasputin]

Another Singleton paper hammer falls.

http://laobserved.com/

This gets worse and worse.

[BitterYoungMatador2]

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_cobra.html

[buckweaver]

What Piotr's referring to:

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/02/layoffs_at_daily_breeze.php

Nine positions at the Singleton-owned Daily Breeze were eliminated today, including four reporters, a web editor and a newsroom receptionist who were laid off. More San Pedro, which began publishing in 2003, was killed. A copy editor quit, reportedly to go to the Times, and two open positions will not be filled.

[dragonfly]

That letter from Hopkins was brilliant!

I don't think there's anyone in this business who still thinks we can just go back to the good old days. Everyone has adapted, or at least tried. To insinuate that people are whining and stubborn is incredibly insulting.

And now to hear that MediaNews has some piss poor web platform, and done everything on the cheap is the most hypocritical BS I've heard in a while.

You can't put good people in an impossible situation, them blame them for whining about it.

[Rex Harrison]

http://www.medianewsgroup.com/contactus/

Cut one of these useless douchebag VP types and you could save enough money to keep all of those newsroom jobs. But what the fuck kind of fantasy world am I living in?

May Dean Singleton suck donkey balls in hell.

[dragonfly]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-coverage29feb29,1,1215327.story

At the San Jose Mercury News, reporters have been instructed to wait at home on the morning of March 7. If they don't get a phone call by 10 a.m. telling them that they've lost their jobs, they should head to work.

Long the oracle of Silicon Valley technology and the go-to spot for government and community news in Santa Clara County, the Mercury News has pared back coverage on several fronts as its news staff has shrunk to about 200 from twice that number in 1999.

What's happening in San Jose is being repeated to a greater or lesser degree across California. Buyouts and layoffs are being imposed at newspapers all over the country, of course, but California is especially vulnerable because of the severity of its real estate downturn. Along with real estate, advertising in related categories such as home furnishings, hardware and even big-box electronics retailing has been slowing, newspaper executives say.

[Your Huckleberry]

Well said Brent Hopkins. Well said.

[Angola!]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-coverage29feb29,1,1215327.story

At the San Jose Mercury News, reporters have been instructed to wait at home on the morning of March 7. If they don't get a phone call by 10 a.m. telling them that they've lost their jobs, they should head to work.

Long the oracle of Silicon Valley technology and the go-to spot for government and community news in Santa Clara County, the Mercury News has pared back coverage on several fronts as its news staff has shrunk to about 200 from twice that number in 1999.

What's happening in San Jose is being repeated to a greater or lesser degree across California. Buyouts and layoffs are being imposed at newspapers all over the country, of course, but California is especially vulnerable because of the severity of its real estate downturn. Along with real estate, advertising in related categories such as home furnishings, hardware and even big-box electronics retailing has been slowing, newspaper executives say.

The bolded part is more than fucked up.

[buckweaver]

Oh, but here's the money quote:

Sam Zell, chief executive of Chicago-based Tribune Co., corporate parent of The Times, KTLA-TV Channel 5, the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers and TV stations across the country, visited The Times' Washington bureau Tuesday to deliver a message about priorities to the news staff there. In a fractious meeting, Zell said The Times had many more newspeople in Washington than in Orange County and that those numbers ought to be reversed. As for foreign news, Zell has said in other forums that journalists tend to like it more than readers do.

If Zell's point is that the real money is in local news, the recent experience of the Daily News, the Orange County Register and the regional dailies ringing the Bay Area -- all more locally oriented than The Times -- has been a discouraging counter example. Their inability to keep ad revenue from falling at double-digit percentages year over year has led to staff reductions that further hobble local news coverage.

Zing motherfucker zing! That took some serious brass balls. Good work, LAT; that's the graf of the year so far.

[Joe Williams]

What Piotr's referring to:

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/02/layoffs_at_daily_breeze.php

Nine positions at the Singleton-owned Daily Breeze were eliminated today, including four reporters, a web editor and a newsroom receptionist who were laid off. More San Pedro, which began publishing in 2003, was killed. A copy editor quit, reportedly to go to the Times, and two open positions will not be filled.

Laying off a web editor? I thought the Web was the future.

[goalmouth]

Outing alert: I Love Puppies is really Sam Zell.

[rpmmutant]

LA Observed has a post that says a staff meeting has been called at the Long Beach Press Telegram at 11 a.m. today. Looks like no one is safe in LANG today.

[wickedwritah]

Funny that what we're hearing about are layoffs/cuts at union shops (Long Beach just reorganized, IIRC) owned by Singleton. Sounds like an attempt at union-busting to me.

[MileHigh]

LA Observed has a post that says a staff meeting has been called at the Long Beach Press Telegram at 11 a.m. today. Looks like no one is safe in LANG today.

Which includes: L.A. Daily News, Torrance (already hit with nine layoffs), Pasadena, San Gabriel, Long Beach, Whittier, Ontario, San Bernardino, Redlands.

Wow. Just ... wow.

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Funny that what we're hearing about are layoffs/cuts at union shops (Long Beach just reorganized, IIRC) owned by Singleton. Sounds like an attempt at union-busting to me.

He was a union-buster even before he was an owner, when he worked for Joe Allbritton. However, I don't think that's it -- this is happening everywhere. Anyway, the union at the LADN has been pretty meek. Top scale for reporters there is $848.38.

[Jim Rockford]

Funny that what we're hearing about are layoffs/cuts at union shops (Long Beach just reorganized, IIRC) owned by Singleton. Sounds like an attempt at union-busting to me.

He was a union-buster even before he was an owner, when he worked for Joe Allbritton. However, I don't think that's it -- this is happening everywhere. Anyway, the union at the LADN has been pretty meek. Top scale for reporters there is $848.38.

As a very happy California homeowner, you can't afford to live on 44,000 without some major side income.

This thread makes me damn glad I walked away from it all several years ago. Unbelievable.

[Frank_Ridgeway]

I thought Jim Rockford lived in a trailer.

[Moderator1]

New answer for when people ask why I got out:  I wanted it to be my call.

No cuts at my old shop yet.  I keep my breath held and fingers crossed.  They're way down as it is so maybe none will come.     I would weep even in my absence because the paper is full of very good, very hard-working people.   I dreaded cuts because A. I didn't want to be one and B. I didn't want to have to tell someone, "Oh, hey, your work is just fine.  We simply don't have enough to pay you anymore."

[MileHigh]

Brent Hopkins, who runs the Daily News union blog, takes the buyout

http://thenutgraph.blogspot.com/2008/02/and-now-its-time-for-my-own-goodbye.html

[Sam Mills 51]

http://www.medianewsgroup.com/contactus/

Cut one of these useless douchebag VP types and you could save enough money to keep all of those newsroom jobs. But what the fuck kind of fantasy world am I living in?

May Dean Singleton suck donkey balls in hell.

Why do they have this many senior executives when it's obvious they want, what, about 10 employees to run every one of their publications?

Oh yeah ... Lean Dean ... cronies. Gotcha. Wise businessman that Singleton ...

And who's surprised that Brent Hopkins took the buyout? After what he said on his blog, of which every word was correct yet tactful, he had to know he would be a target of Singleton's from here on out.

[rpmmutant]

It's not the right time to question anyone's motives for taking a buyout. Brent has been on the frontlines of this fight for a long time, a voice of reason in a time of unreasonable demands. I might not agree with his decision, but I would never question his courage. Anyone who works at a Singleton paper is a target, even the silent ones. And in my opinion, those are the worst kind of journalists.

[Mateo]

Copy desks for news and sports are to be combined between the Breeze and the P-T. 12 positions created to accommodate universal desks to be stationed at the Breeze. Those 12 positions to be decided from 21 designers and copy editors from the P-T. So, 8-9 people will be technically out of a job at the P-T when it all shakes out.