Diane Pucin cut by LA Times

And Chris Erskine is *still* on the LAT sports pages....
huh.

 

Just heard she was fired with cause, which changes things considerably. Can't get the reason, though.

 

I don't know why anyone would say she "will be fine" and hired soon. Nothing to do with ability. How often do people with that much experience get hired anywhere these days?

 

I had decided I wasn't going to come on here and belabor the point, but, yeah, definitely this. In fact, it was my very first thought as soon as I saw the thread title.

 

Just guessing, but i'd say she has amassed a number of connections that dwarf most people who are looking for work. No guarantee, but it sure helps.

 

Bingo.

 

I am not even sure it is a "young-and-cheap" thing anymore. I really think it's a young-and-willing/able-to-work-24-7."

It's a willingness/energy thing. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Most people older than 30 do not want to spend their days wasting time tweeting/blogging about every little thing. The 24-hour news cycle is not something anybody who leaves (or is forced out of) the business will miss before long.

It's the people, not the work, that is missed, for long afterward.

 

Don't know any newsroom veterans who were asked, "Are you willing to work '24/7,' to use the cliche, or at least to do more (work) for less (pay) than you already are?", before they were dumped. If top brass is making presumptions about employees based on that, it is opening itself up to age discrimination claims. But it can simply look at payroll records and know precisely who is and who isn't hauling in more cash than it wants to, or feels it needs to, pay.

 

Exactly. If the concern is about money, why not ask if someone is willing to do just that? I'm guessing that at least some of the people who have been dumped in recently years -- especially if they were making more than enough for a long time, anyway -- probably would have answered in the affirmative just for the chance to stay where they were at, in order to not be completely out of work and so as not to have to go job-hunt -- a prospect that is never fun and darn near impossible to do in middle age these days.

The reason is because that's not what is wanted. Sure, a company might be opening itself up to possible age-discrimination lawsuits, but, so what? No one who actually wants to still work in the business will actually follow through with one.

Even termination-with-cause cases can't necessarily always be taken a face value because if someone is involuntarily terminated, of course there has to be a cause. But if a paper wants to get rid of you, it will find a way, and a cause, to do so -- even if it takes longer to build up a case and do it, and the process has to be put in place and carried out.

The company, not the targeted person, has all the power.

 

Without doubt.

If the company wants you gone, you're gone. Whether it's a firing, a buyout, moving you to an undesirable job or jobs, demoting you, heaping on more duties, expecting overtime but knowing you won't say anything, eliminating a position/beat and "reorganizing" ... if you're on the list, your days are numbered.

 

The corporations have us all in the crosshairs.

Ultimately they want us dead so we will quit eating and then they can feed on the bodies.

Remember that the next time somebody wants you to bend over and hand more power (political, financial, organizational) over to the corporations instead of some kind of group in which you yourself have some kind of voice (small or limited as it may be).

 

Still not following you. You're saying that "most people older than 30" get targeted for layoffs because they don't want to work hard? Or they consider the sort of work they're being asked to do to be, what, just busy work or beneath them?

That's really presumptuous and makes me wonder how old you are and/or how hard you work.

So does this: "...especially if they were making more than enough for a long time, anyway." What's more than enough? According to whom? Chances are, unless we're talking some sort of "star" in this business, most people don't consider themselves to be making more than enough. And given that human nature tends to drive most people to live up to the level of their income, even the so-called stars might have less of a cash cushion that you seem to believe.

Shedding people due to salaries at least gets a company right to the essence of what it is seeking. I think it stinks and that, in the worst of times, workers with seniority should be offered a chance to stay on at a lower rate (we know how employers feel about that, though). Still, making assumptions about people's willingness to work hard or to do crap work based solely on their age or years of experience is at best vague and inefficient and begging for litigation.