Copy editing job cuts at Toronto Star

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/toronto-star-to-slash-jobs-outsource-some-editing/article9263051/

 

That sucks.

 

Is the outsourcing company a 100% North American operation or is some of this work going to wind up overseas?

 

I believe it's a North American operation, and unionized. Still.....

 

And the union is asking for a byline strike for Wednesday's paper. All perfectly legal within the CBA.

http://www.steveladurantaye.ca/star-union-memo-byline-strike/

For Wednesday’s newspaper – the printed paper, that is, not the website – we are asking all reporters and photographers to exercise their unfettered contractual right to withdraw their bylines. We are asking columnists — who are in a different and awkward position, because byline withdrawal from a column means no column, therefore a refusal to work — to write about why editing and page design and the good ol’ “legacy product” of the paper itself is still vital to our community, etc.

 

How quaint the union thinks readers gve a damn about bylines.

 

Did you read the full text? He wrote an entire paragraph acknowledging that issue.

 

I actually thought the opposite was policy in Canada.

 

Copy editors have surpassed designers as the most endangered species in journalism.

Although the middle managers who do as little as possible have taken a well-deserved beating.

 

Sure does.

 

And then he wrote that it would send management a message. Which it won't.

Want to send management a message? Do what the NY Post did to Abe Hirschfeld 20+ years ago when Hirschfeld bought the paper. Rip his ass on every single page, and post nothing on the web site other than anti-management stuff. That will get the attention of readers, and management.