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100+ take Post buyout

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Moderator1, May 23, 2008.

  1. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Details here

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR2008052203753.html?hpid=moreheadlines
     
  2. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Stephen Hunter is one of the best film critics around...
     
  3. Interesting that they named names. I seem to remember a crusty board veteran ripping me mercilessly as a snot-nosed know-nothing for suggesting the New York Times should have done so.
     
  4. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Not really.

    The NYT had layoffs. WaPo had buyouts only.

    If WaPo names the names of people they lay off, kick to the curb . . . get back to us.
     
  5. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Although I hate to say it, but the only difference between buyouts and layoffs these days, is you can collect unemployment after a layoff...

    I know several who have taken buyouts who feel like they were fired.
     
  6. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    Spot on, Mizzou.

    -- When you are encouraged to leave because your five-figure salary going forward is more burdensome to the seven-figure suits and profiteers than your years of service and talents to still produce strong journalism are worth retaining ...

    -- When your life's work and professional passion mean nothing to so many of the bosses for whom you have busted a gut, disrupted your personal life, sacrificed many luxuries and put the product and the readers first ...

    -- When you are nudged toward the door not only by a one-time payoff but by the implicit -- or in some cases, explicit -- threat that you might not like the, er, next role you're moved into and "gee, you might think twice at that point about your decision to stay" ...

    -- When the average buyout leaves you with less cash, in terms of multiples of annual earnings, than what a lawn service guy would sell his business for to some kid down the block, yet it beats the very real prospect of being put on the street with minimal severance pay ...

    -- When an editor-in-chief presides over one or more rounds of buyouts and then, in his/her first staff meeting afterward, lies loudly about how much leaner and efficient the newsroom will be ...

    -- When a story comes up that just cries out for some local historical perspective but there's no one in the department who goes back more than 10 years in terms of knowledge or sources, because the vets have been bought and cleared out ...

    Then people might understand that buyouts are little different from layoffs.

    Yet jackass newspapers, in announcing or not announcing names, act like there is some shame in being laid off from a sputtering company in a sickly industry. Meanwhile, they release the names of those receiving buyouts as if management is doing those folks some grand, sweeping favor by cutting them the final checks they might ever see in this profession.

    What these places ought to do is blank out the names on the mastheads, because they're the bozos who ought to be ashamed.
     
  7. Stone Cane

    Stone Cane Member

    dig it, joe
     
  8. SF_Express

    SF_Express Active Member

    As far as I know, another guy taking the buyout is my long-ago roommate, Richard Leiby.

    People who follow such things will know that A) he wrote the Post's version of a gossip column for a while and B) is one of the foremost reporters in the country on the subject of Scientology.

    A very intellectual, culture savvy guy. He used to take me to punk clubs, and I got him to go to a country bar once. It was easier for me to go in the one direction than it was for him to go in the other. But we were great roommates.
     
  9. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    It's been a long, long time since there has been much good news in the journalism world.

    Get your resumes ready. They're coming for the rest of us next.
     
  10. SixToe

    SixToe Well-Known Member

    Joe Williams, I heart you.

    (In that business-sense, manly, you're spot-on sort of way)

    Excellent post.
     
  11. spnited

    spnited Active Member


    Interesting the Post named names. Not really important that the Post did and the Times didn't.
    Not sure why this is such an issue with you.
     
  12. SF_Express

    SF_Express Active Member

    Actually, spnited ... aside from the layoff/buyout business, I think perhaps a paper that's losing some of its top people owes it to the readership to let them know who those people are. But maybe that's just me.
     
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