Tulsa World lays off 26

This is a good shop and a good paper.
Sad news and bad news for the people in Tulsa.
Anyone know if any of the 26 were in sports?

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13760

 

26? My god.
This business is dead but we already knew that.

 

One of the cuts was a sports desker, Adam Daigle.

Four graphics artists were canned, leaving only the graphics editor in that department.

Those terminated got two weeks pay plus health insurance through the month.

They were sent an email Monday afternoon about a Tuesday morning meeting, where they were terminated.

 

Two weeks TOTAL?

 

Yeah, that's my question as well.
Back to Tulsa, this shop was seen as a place that was kind of bulletproof. Family owned and operated. Totally dominates the market and quirky in that way only a family owned paper can be. For example, they don't do a paper for Christmas Day.
For them to be laying people off, that's a wow.

 

Bumping this, because I can't believe it.

 

I was the lone casualty in sports.

As I type this 24 hours after my dismissal, no one has given me a concrete answer as to why I was chosen. Not that I wish this on anyone else, but there are people still working there who have served suspensions - some more than once. I can only assume it was since I was the last FT hired (June 06). Life, as they say, isn't fair.

To my knowledge, they eliminated graphics, Satellite (weekly teen section), a night reporter, an internet reporter, some folks in research (don't know all of them, but there were some in there), a photographer, a A1 designer and a news copy editor. I am told the news copy editor got the news while on vacation.

There were some bright, talented people in that room.

And all this after a night where I was in the slot with one of the smallest crews I've ever had. We busted our ass to get a paper out on deadline.

 

Nice that they waited until Tulsa played its bowl game to drop the hammer. Bastards.

 

Devastating news. My heart goes out to a great staff and great paper.

 

I second that. Tulsa's an underrated city and its paper is the same. It flies under the radar... unfortunately, today's news was for all the wrong reasons.

 

My heart goes out to you because the same thing happened at my last gig as a desker. Good luck finding another gig. If anyone can land on their feet, it is you.


I know th

 

Sorry. You seem like a class act. The powers that be wait until the bowl game ends then axes somebody. Great.
Sounds like their cuts were not very classy. Good luck to you. It does suck knowing it was not job related and there's nothing you could have done.