Star Tribune's Kevin Seifert off to ESPN.com

Probably a safe bet...

 

They'll thank you more when you've transitioned to a more secure and more lucrative career.

No offense intended, but every day you don't get out, it gets worse. And harder. Do you really trust the folks who own and run that place in particular, in bad biz overall, with your wife's, your child's and your mortgage's (?) future? Not everyone has Seifert's good fortune but everyone can take control of their working lives.

From what I hear, the private-equity approach is even worse than the publicly held ownership model, because at least shareholders are relatively slow and lethargic in demanding their profits. Private-equity guys will cut and slash you like Russian mobsters to pocket an extra five bucks.

 

Another example of how the top one percent of our industry are in great shape and the rest of us are seriously fucked...

 

Ain't it the truth, Mizzou.

 

I talked to one of my former bosses a few days ago and he said, "There are two kinds of people left in the business, the ones who are totally fucked and the ones who are too delusional to know that they're totally fucked..."

 

Into which group would you put the poor saps who are just trying to make it to early retirement -- product, impact or job satisfaction be damned?

Both?

 

It will not surprise me at all if in the next 2-3 years we just start seeing papers folding all over the place.

When is it going to get better?

It's not.

 

Question for oldsters more veteran journos: Are pensions safe when a company goes under? I don't mean all the extra bennies, like health-care bridges to Medicare and stuff. I just mean the cold, hard cash that has been promised and projected.

 

They weren't safe for United. And this article, from 2005, said 20 companies had defaulted on pensions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/12/AR2005061201367.html

 

ESPN may be assembling a battalion of NFL writers, but with its NFL contract will they let them loose on the attack? Just wondering.

 

Probably not but they will be able to report Johnny Jockstrap, an undrafted rookie out of Southwestern Shitsville State signed a one year deal and scroll it on from ESPN to ESPNU to ABC Family.

 

I'm not going to take a lot of time looking it up right now, but I believe Congress and Bush put together a law a couple of years ago that protects pensions to at least some extent.