Trouble down Newhouse way

Newhouse News Service is closing its Washington DC bureau
http://ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4583

Is this a sign of things to come at Newhouse-owned papers?
Who knows.

 

They've already had a few voluntary buyouts, as well.

 

That's got to be the worst corporate phrase...well, if not ever, then at least this year.

People, when they volunteer to leave, don't get buyouts.

these "voluntary buyouts" were given to fired people.

 

Company has a no layoff policy, so no, they weren't.

 

Corporate speak.

They were encouraged to leave. I've quit jobs before. I haven't gotten a cent.

 

Regardless, my point was that there have been other signs that Newhouse is cutting back.

 

Newhouse took a big hit in New Orleans because of Katrina.
Then the econmy and newspaper problems led to a big drop in Star-Ledger advertising revenue and circulation.
The two cash cows of the Advance Publications newpaper division took major hits.
Knowing a little bit about how the Newhouse family operates, this is not corporate suits screwing their people. This is a family owned business taking huge hits.

 

I work for a paper in this chain. It is not corporate speak. They treat people uncommonly well even when trimming staff.

 

I'll take your word on it. I still see this and see people who didn't want to leave...leaving.

You'll have to forgive my auto-skepticism mode. Sign o' the times.

 

Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr. (born November 8, 1927), nicknamed Si Newhouse, is the chairman and CEO of Advance Publications, which, among other interests, owns Condé Nast Publications, which owns magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker among many others. He is the son of Samuel Irving Newhouse, Sr., founder of Advance Publications. His grandson, S.I. Newhouse IV, appeared in the documentary Born Rich.

Newhouse attended the Horace Mann School in New York City. He is a billioniare with an estimated net worth of $8.5 billion, and he is currently ranked the 37th Richest American by Forbes Magazine in 2007.

 

Sure. Like the 20-plus-year reporting veteran in New Orleans who was told he was being moved to the circulation department. He retired, which was of course the idea. Call it what you like, but when they want to get rid of you, they do.

 

It's pretty telling about the quality of the Newshouse News Service that The Associated Press reported the Washington bureau was closing, not NNS itself.

I'm not sure what 24 journalists were doing in that bureau, but it certainly wasn't producing copy daily.