Too few take buyout offer from NYT

New York Times Co. on Wednesday told employees that it has had to resort to layoffs after not enough volunteers accepted buyouts intended to cut 100 newsroom jobs. Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said the paper wouldn't disclose names or the number of employees being let go. The Times announced the cuts in February, citing declines in advertising revenue that have forced more than a dozen metro dailies throughout the U.S. to trim newsroom staffs since the beginning of the year. The cuts will reduce by about 8% a newsroom of 1,332 employees.

 

"wouldn't disclose names"

Among the emptiest so-called noble gestures in the business.

 

They'll emerge.

Trying to supress them would be akin to attempting to supress the Atlantic tides.

 

The NYT, the paper that published the Pentagon Papers, won't disclose its own buyouts and cuts.

How hypocritical.

And I get that it's probably a legal matter and they probably couldn't safely do it if they wanted to.

But still, looks bad.

 

I'm pretty sure this doesn't fall under the heading of either "full disclosure" or "national security." Employees have the right to privacy.

And the union's grieving management for the handling of the layoffs:

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13314

 

I know. I totally understand.

Still makes us look bad.

 

They have zero obligation to post names.

They have every obligation to post the exact number of people who are let go.

It's fucking news.

 

Right, abiding by labor laws and employee privacy rights makes "us" look bad.
How self-absorbed have "we" become with "our" image?

 

You might get some better answers on here if you didn't act like everybody was a complete fucking idiot all the time.

 

Ok, waylon, how does this make "us" look bad?

And who is "us"?

 

Journalists.

We constantly dig to get the dirt on everybody else.

Suddenly, the spotlight is turned on one of our own, and that entity - notorious for being the most relentless journalists in the country, maybe the world - suddenly forgets how to gather news unless it is spoonfed and corporate approved.

And you can keep putting "us" in parentheses to be a prick and patronize me, but the public doesn't differentiate. You have to remember that a sizable percentage of people out there think of the media as one big moving part that coordinates its reportage through some dark underworld clearinghouse.

I'm exaggerating for effect, but basically, for John Q. Public, it's just one other example of why journalists - "us" - are not to be trusted. That we can dish it out, but we can't take it.

And I say this, as I said, completely understanding why the NYT can't officially release those names. But what if its business reporters get a list together - can't be that hard to figure out, right? Do they run the story? They should.