Houston Chronicle

they've been getting UT and A&M from San Antonio since the end of football season. I'd imagine they might move somebody up or over to fill the local college slots.

 

This sucks. I worked with M.K. and Murphy over the past few years. Really good guys and professionals. Just saw Murph a few weeks ago. He was helpful and busted his tail covering two teams at the C-USA Tournament.

Damn this economy.

 

This quote from Jeff Cohen's e-mail got my attention:

"One thing will not change: our mission as journalists to inform, educate and entertain the readers of our newspaper and Web site and to hold government and other powerful institutions accountable."

Really? Really?

I've decided to stay as positive as I can about my situation. But it hurts to hear of such moves being made and management trying to rally the troops with such worthless garbage.

We're supposed to do more with less so stockholders can get more instead of less.

Happy Tuesday, everybody.

 

The watchdog journalism stuff becomes increasingly harder to do the smaller a staff gets.

 

Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ.

I think if I were still in newspapers, I would start clearing all my personal items out of my workspace — just in case.

 

Master list of those who got axed: http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2009/03/chron_layoff_names.php
Further details: http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2009/03/some_thoughts_on_the_chronicle.php
Ombudsman asks for reader input: http://blogs.chron.com/aboutchron/archives/2009/03/talk_about_the.html

 

A comment from that first link:

 

Then there is this, from the blog:

 

Has the section shrunk as well?

Knew a few of those guys from my brief stint as part-timer back in the 90s. I suspect Rice, UH, TSU, etc., won't be emphasized as much. Not competing with the Big 12 schools and the pro teams there.

 

And Finger had been a columnist in San Antonio before shifting back to beat coverage. The E-N's Texas writer, Natalie England, recently left to take a gig at the UT Web site.

 

Heard through the Birdscribe Pipeline (pat pending) -- which, as you know, is the Class AA version of the vaunted and intrepid Moddy Pipeline -- that Steve Campbell, the excellent golf writer and former columnist, is now the UH writer.

 

There is a 5 p.m. update on the blog. A friend, Joe Conway, is now on the list. He was not earlier. He's an online editor; I'd have thought he had one of the safer jobs.

I'd e-mailed a mutual friend that Joe was not affected by the cuts. The friend just checked the list and wrote back to say, "Yes, he was."

Damn. A few more names added. You might want to look again if you know someone who works there.