Atlanta to cut 80 newsroom jobs

damn it's getting freaky with all the buyouts being offered.

 

Where do you see the news the morning paper leaving? I read the thing on Poynter and didn't see that mentioned.

 

This is from deep within the BYH pipeline. Damn! I've never been able to say that before. I feel like a gangsta. Watch out Moddy!

Feel free to post this. In the interest of anonymity, I'm not. I hadn't seen the wire, but I was in that meeting, and the story posted on the thread was a little different from what I heard. They're offering buyouts to employees who are aged 55 and over and have reached the 10-year vestment level in the retirement system. That was about 80 people, if Julia Wallace is to be believed. At the end of the meeting, someone asked about the overall staffing level, and publisher John Mellott stepped in and said that if less than 80 take the separation package, then we'll have a larger newsroom. (If the size of the meeting is to be believed, then it's currently more than 500 people; the room held 475, it was full, and there were a number of people who for various reasons could not be there). At no time was it said that 80 people were going to be cut. It seems easy to read the lines, and whoever wrote the Bloomberg story seems to have taken that liberty, but they strongly emphasized they would not make staffing decisions until they knew how many were going to take the package. The status quo will continue until June, when the new staffing structure is to take place. In April and May, the timeline says, they will be interviewing people for redefined job slots. People who are on beats, Wallace said, would be given right of first refusal for those jobs.

 

Two things from Editor & Publisher, two from the AJC trying to cover its ass:

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003546599

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003546717

http://ajc.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=AJC+announces+restructuring&expire=&urlID=21214339&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ajc.com%2Fbusiness%2Fcontent%2Fbusiness%2Fstories%2F2007%2F02%2F15%2F0216bizajc.html&partnerID=550

http://ajc.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=A+letter+to+AJC+readers&expire=&urlID=21214851&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ajc.com%2Fbusiness%2Fcontent%2Fbusiness%2Fstories%2F2007%2F02%2F15%2F0216letter.html&partnerID=550

 

Doesn't this make sense? I mean, does it seem to make sense for the paper to need to be available in Florida or Alabama when people can just read it online? Sounds like a waste of money to me. If they're going to waste money, it should be on big-time, high-profile journalists, right?

 

Re: Dallas Morning News.

When the DMN cut staff, it was far from voluntary for the people who got fired.

 

People in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle need the Atlanta paper in their outhouses.

 

At some point you would think those who make the decisions realize this buyout/job loss/cooler job market will eventually persuade the bright, inquisitive people who have long thought of becoming journalists to go to another field where there is a much smaller chance they will be looking for something else within 10 years. I mean, if this continues, how many of the 'cream of the crop' will be choosing journalism? This could have a serious effect on the quality of the news and on the ability of newspapers/web outlets to find qualified workers. Of course, those in charge could care less about that right now, I'm sure, but it's worth thinking about. It's a shock to see this at Atlanta, though, I always thought they were safe.

 

I don't know about that. My 16-year-old niece is really turned on by journalism, loves working on the school paper, has heard all the good and the bad from me. I was talking about this with someone in a different department of our newsroom last week and she was saying she wouldn't encourage a kid to get into this field. I said that first of all, I can't really tell my niece with any certainty how it's going to be when she's ready to work, for all I know the Internet will be obsolete and we'll be freaked out over some new technology we can't even imagine right now. And second, there will always be entry-level positions in some kind of journalism, and if I have to bet on someone, I'd bet on someone like my niece who won't be discouraged.

Things were really scary in newspapers in the early 1980s when I was getting ready to start working on metros. No. 2 dailies in a lot of cities were folding and there were entire staffs of veteran, big-city journalists available. That made it very difficult, but I really wanted to do this, there was no other field even under consideration. The other people, well, they'll find something else, but there will always be some of us who have to do this, nothing else will do.

 

The sad part will be the trickle down. Small papers that can use layoffs as a chance to boost profit margin and say "well, the big boys are cutting people, so industry trends dictate your ass is gone."

 

So much for hiring on at the AJC to be closer to my family.

 

come on frank. pensacola is pretty cool.