Blood in the streets of Hartford and Baltimore

http://www.poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13920

This memo on Poynter said that the Sun has cut 272 newsroom jobs in 10 years and now have only 148 in the newsroom.
Is that right? Holy Fuck!

 

Doesn't get much more gutless than that.

 

One of ours got some action last month.

Wife and I had dinner at a waterfront cafe, then took Water Taxi ride back to downtown. Wife became ill during the boat ride and was in bad shape when we reached my office, where we had parked.

So I rush her into the building so she can get to a bathroom as soon as possible.

But I did not check in with the security guard when I got off the elevator. And guard was not happy that I ignored the precious rules about guests needing to check in with security. Read me the riot act.

I'm sure in 3 weeks when I get the ax he will be the one escorting me out the door.

Burn in Hell, Zell.

 

Dealing with several layoffs in my short career, I've been left wondering would I be one of those people who quietly leaves the office, escorted by the security guard. Instead, I really think i'd go kind of ape-shit and take off down the halls, daring the overweight guard to catch me.
Good luck out there people.

 

Shot in the dark here, but ...

Anyone know if the Joe DeCarlo who got whacked in Baltimore is the same guy who worked in Sports at the Miami Herald in the late '70s?

 

Taken from Poynter:

David Simon, a former Sun reporter and the high-energy creator of the HBO series "The Wire," did not hold back in a comment on his Facebook page: "I (am) revulsed at what happened at the Baltimore Sun this week. ... It's almost unfathomable. The Baltimore newspaper's only plan is slow suicide, with Chicago leeching the last nickels and dimes even to the moment when they shutter the doors. Never has an industry so willingly butchered itself or shown its own product such contempt."

Wow.

 

We haven't even come close to the bottom, sadly.

 

Rick Maese and David Steele were let go, as they were the least senior columnists in sports. Childs Walker is moving back to news where he has more seniority. Bill Ordine is gone.

Here are a couple of good blog postings by former Sun folk:
http://ettlin.blogspot.com/2009/04/baltimore-sun-massacre.html

http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/?p=2184

It feels surreal to be parsing the lists to see who's gone, like searching for names you know a list of victims from a tragedy. Or like in a war movie when the unit reunites after a fire fight and they gradually realize who didn't make it back.

From a sports point of view, reading The Sun now and knowing what it used to be is like watching the Colts of Unitas and Marchetti and Moore and Donovan going 2-14 in front of 12,000 fans in the early 80s as Bob Irsay intentionally destroys the team.

 

The Baltimore cuts, except perhaps for AJC, are the biggest names I've seen yet: great writers, much of the personality of the sports section. Again, the decisions being made stopped making sense a long time ago.

I think we'd be upset because of the "who" no matter what, but the "how" here is just ridiculous. They knew at the start of the day who they were cutting, and sent them out, business as usual, just the same. It's just false, all at the expense of making sure everybody finds out at the same time. Beyond weak.

 

A couple of reactions:

* What is the "bottom" for how badly things like this will be handled? There never seems to be a backlash and a lesson learned, as in: "Uh, let's not ax people that way when it's our paper's turn to do it." It's almost as if the real challenge is to handle such a horrible move even more contemptuously. Since they can, they do.

* When do we reach the tipping point where the quality of people who have been laid off, bought out, run off or even turned off to the business before they dip a toe in is greater than those still remaining? No one even pretends anymore that newspapers are shedding its stragglers while keeping its best and brightest. We've never embraced a "retention bonus" system, fine, but this is all 180 degrees from that. Simon is right -- what industry can get rid of so much knowledge and talent and still pretend to offer its customers anything but a woefully inferior product?

* In pretty much every aspect of life now, I'll take my chances more with people who are former newspaper journalists than I will with folks who are current newspaper managers. Having my back in a dark alley, helping me when a storm knocks down my house, even picking up a simple dinner check. Allowing for certain exceptions -- far fewer than there ought to be -- the wrong people are losing their jobs.

 

During a game. They tell them during a game. Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ. Someone in Baltimore, I offer you three words: BUY YOUR PAPER. (Not a copy of it, the whole damn thing.)