Singleton strikes again

http://reporter-g.blogspot.com/2009/01/universal-copy-desk.html

And, if you're counting, that would be the fourth forced relocation for the Sun/Bulletin sports desk since the summer of 2007 (plus a fifth in fall '05, when they moved into the new building north of downtown). From San Berdoo to West Covina back to San Berdoo to Ontario and now to West Covina again. That's fucking brutal.

Might not be the end of the bad news, either ...

 

2009 picking up where 2008 left off.

 

This is not a d_b, but it seems like I saw something about that a couple weeks ago, maybe on LA Observed.

Regardless, yeah, this sucks. Did they forget why they stopped doing this last time?

 

Yeah, Gary Scott had something two weeks ago. Back then, it was just supposed to include a consolidation of the "Inland Division". Now, they're incorporating Long Beach, Torrance and LADN (a.k.a. the Coastal Division) into the so-called universal copydesk, too.

But why they continue to try to base everything at the hellhole that is San Gabriel, I don't know.

 

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2009/01/first_costcutting_of_new.php

Kevin Roderick reports that the LADN is still losing money, and "looking to give up one of the floors the DN occupied in September in the new building on Burbank Blvd."

That takes friggin' talent for a Singleton paper to stay in the red as long as they have. Good work, LADN suits. :

 

The Coastal people probably make more money. So maybe he figures they'll quit because of the drive.

 

Update from Gary Scott:

Severance, I'm told, will be the same as it usually is for Singleton: Two weeks' pay for each year of work, max of six weeks' pay. Hope some folks will be smart enough to take it, if they're ready to get out. It's more than anyone else got for any of the previous forced relocations.

 

From Kevin Roderick now:

What, you mean that five-paper clusterfuck strategy didn't fail enough the first time they tried it in 2007? Who makes these decisions anyway? :

Besides, there's no such thing as a Pasadena or Whittier copy desk at this point. They've been consolidated with the Trib for quite a few years now, just as San Berdoo and Ontario have been combined since 2005.

 

Six weeks severance? Utterly pathetic.

Although from the grave, Bob Jelenic laughs.

 

Surely, you meant to say six MONTHS max, right?