It's called thinning the herd

[jaredk]

How many of you work in a shop with mediocrities, iincompetents, and/or deadwood old farts who just don't care?

I have read on this board many times that you would like those people to get out of the way so good people can do good work.

Yet now that newspapers are getting rid of people, all I hear is moaning, groaning, and gnashing of teeth about Doomsday Is Here.

Granted, not all the people leaving are the incompetents. At the same time, I would bet that the 7 percent who will leave the NYT are not the best 7 percent. Maybe a handful of the 100 will be great journalists. But most will not be missed in any long-term meaningful way. To me, it's like saying, OK, the bottom 7 percent of the class is dismissed, everyone with over a 1.0 GPA can stay.

Is that a cold way to put it? Yeah. It's a cold world. Legally, union rules and all, you probably can't just lay off everyone you'd like. Morally, you probably wouldn't want to. So the alternative is to have early-retirement packages. Better to be a little humane than have the corporate Trump figure walk through the newsroom, point to the incompetents, and say, "You're fired."

Every newsroom I have been in is about twice the size it was in the mid-'70s. Losing 7 percent of a 100 percent increase is not Doomsday. It may even make sense.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Jared, you're obviously young. Buyouts affect two categories of people, those with seniority, and those who have other options, meaning they're good. There is overlap between the two groups, as well.
There are people who settle into a rut and never get better in any line of work. There are as many, in fact, more, who take their work seriously, try to learn each day, and continue to improve, even if they've been doing it for decades.
A newspaper whose editorial staff was all over 50 would suck. So would one with all the staff under 30.

 

[Joe Williams]

Second dat, what Mike Gee wrote. If it's a buyout, you're most likely to lose people close to retiring anyway or people who have other employment options. You're least likely to lose deadwood, who like their easy situations now and who probably realize their next employment options are slim. Those folks are most likely to cling to the jobs they have for as long as they can.

If it's a layoff, it most likely will get done according to reverse seniority, which usually gets rid of younger people and people the current bosses hired and favor. About the only way that you would shed more deadwood than true talent and effort is if it were a surgical layoff, targeting only the slackers regardless of age or seniority. But we hardly ever hear of such a thing in this business.

And that's probably a good thing. If managers aren't actively assessing and dealing with poor performers all the time -- generating whatever paper trail might be needed to actually dump a person, but better still, working to maximize their strengths, minimize their weaknesses and just serve notice that they face expectations -- then they shouldn't be able to hide behind an industry crisis to do their managing (i.e., firing) for them. It would be a pretty ****-poor boss who lets deadwood steal money from his department, hoping for the day that mass layoffs fix the problem for him.

 

[Some Guy]

Here's the other thing ... there are incompetents everywhere, and we've gotten rid of a good bit of deadwood in our two rounds of buyouts -- but we don't replace them.

To me, the frightening part of this is not that we're knocking off people who were on cruise control for the paycheck, it's that we're not replacing the bodies. We're just being asked to do more with less. So we've got stringers covering college basketball and editors covering pro hockey in their downtime, or we just blow off more things -- and I work at a 200K. Not Podunkville by any means.

To me, that's where the pissing and moaning comes in. We're combating our decline in circulation by ... putting out a product that's worse.

 

[Joe Williams]

Y'know what, I'll take this a step further: If you have access to a buyout and don't seriously consider it these days, it might say something about your risk tolerance and your self-esteem.

It was one thing when journalists accepted, within themselves, the idea that they would never get rich and might have to do basically the same old thing for 30 years or more, but made the tradeoff because they love the work. It seems to me it's quite another thing to have management actively breathing down our necks, reminding us daily that we're simply drains on the bottom line, demonstrating that hopes of career growth are a big joke and lusting to replace us with someone less experienced to save $10K or $20K a year on our already modest (way less than the bosses', for one thing) salaries.

Funny how the $190K managing editor can't wait to replace several $50K reporters/copy editors with people making $40K. Gee, maybe if the managing editor "only" made $150K, that might help, too.

The indignities of this business have never been more out in the open. To many of us, the attitude from on high is, "You are not valued" and "You are more pricey than we like." Not to mention the ol' "We can make your life even more miserable overnight -- you're assigned to cover the West Podunk city council -- and there's not one thing you can do about it."

If you're any good, at journalism's meager prices, and you wouldn't think long and hard about grabbing a buyout and pursuing something more lucrative, more secure and less insulting, well, maybe you love the abuse or you don't have faith in yourself. That's how I'm feeling today anyway.

 

[Some Guy]

Y'know what, I'll take this a step further: If you have access to a buyout and don't seriously consider it these days, it might say something about your risk tolerance and your self-esteem.

It was one thing when journalists accepted, within themselves, the idea that they would never get rich and might have to do basically the same old thing for 30 years or more, but made the tradeoff because they love the work. It seems to me it's quite another thing to have management actively breathing down our necks, reminding us daily that we're simply drains on the bottom line, demonstrating that hopes of career growth are a big joke and lusting to replace us with someone less experienced to save $10K or $20K a year on our already modest (way less than the bosses', for one thing) salaries.

Funny how the $190K managing editor can't wait to replace several $50K reporters/copy editors with people making $40K. Gee, maybe if the managing editor "only" made $150K, that might help, too.

The indignities of this business have never been more out in the open. To many of us, the attitude from on high is, "You are not valued" and "You are more pricey than we like." Not to mention the ol' "We can make your life even more miserable overnight -- you're assigned to cover the West Podunk city council -- and there's not one thing you can do about it."

If you're any good, at journalism's meager prices, and you wouldn't think long and hard about grabbing a buyout and pursuing something more lucrative, more secure and less insulting, well, maybe you love the abuse or you don't have faith in yourself. That's how I'm feeling today anyway.

I hadn't been at my current shop long enough to consider the buyout the last time it was offered. That said, not sure I would have taken it, unless I was close to retirement.

I still love what I do, and I've decided I'm going down with the ship. I'm like the last guy on the Titanic, clinging for life to a deck chair with one hand, a mai tai in the other, and wondering when the hell the next round of Bingo is going to start.

I'll figure out the next phase of my life from the bottom of the ocean. But that's just me. I don't have it as bad as (apparently) you do. At least not yet.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

Things our paper does today that it didn't do in the '70s:

-- Cover women's basketball at our two Division I colleges.
-- Cover girls prep sports (more than 50 schools).
-- Send a full-timer to every baseball game of the big school, home and away.
-- Staff baseball games of the smaller school when possible.
-- Cover softball at the big school.
-- Cover gymnastics at the big school.
-- Have a full-timer assigned to recruiting.
-- Cover select NASCAR races and the Masters.
-- Cover a national championship track program.
-- Post breaking news on a Web site that didn't exist in the '70s.
-- Maintain bureaus that didn't exist in the '70s.
-- A lot of minor stuff that adds up to at least another big beat.

Area teams that came out of nowhere in the '90s and 2000s:
-- Minor league hockey
-- JUCO baseball
-- Indoor football
-- Semi-pro football
-- Minor league baseball

Our staff is not twice the size it was in the '70s, and in fact, we have less production help than in those days.

 

[Diabeetus]

I interned at a major metro this summer that had just gone through a round of buyouts. The sports department, which had employed about 110 in the mid-80s (its peak) was down to around 40 people. Do you have any evidence to support your claims of staff growth?

 

[sportschick]

Very few papers have a bigger newsroom now then they did in 70s or even the 80s.

 

[Starman]

Every newsroom I have been in is about twice the size it was in the mid-'70s.

You've been in some very unusual newsrooms, then.

In other words, I'm calling bull****. Repeat: Bull ****.

I've worked at six different papers over a 20+-year career, and know people at a few dozen others. Every single one has a newsroom staff dramatically (at least 25%) smaller now than 20 years ago. Repeat: Every Single One.

 

[spnited]

Our sports staff is a little larger than it was 10 years ago.

 

[hockeybeat]

This is plenty obvious. There are lazy people in every age group. I don't know how Jared's shop operates, but I'd rather work with vets because they have the experience to help young writers and young deskers improve their craft.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

It's simply not true that newsrooms are smaller than they were in the 1970s.

According to the Newspaper Association of America, here are the total newspaper employment figures (in thousands):

1970 357.8
1975 361.5
1980 402.8
1985 431.8
1990 455.7
1991 440.8
1992 433.5
1993 432.8
1994 430.5
1995 429.7
1996 423.4
1997 423.6
1998 425.4
1999 424.5
2000 422.6
2001 406.7
2002 388.9
2003 381.3
2004 375.6

Now note that these figures include all newspaper employees, and most newspapers shed a lot of production employees due to pagination and more efficient presses in the 1980s and 1990s, and still employment increased for a time. Note also that many newspapers folded in the 1980s and 1990s and still employment increased for a time.

A ****load of bodies were added in many newsrooms in the mid- to late-1980s, especially in high-growth Sun Belt cities. Some papers also had smaller sprees in the mid-1990s. One paper where I worked, not in the Sun Belt, more than doubled its newsroom, although it since has lost about 75 positions but is still larger than it was in the late 1970s. You can't really make a blanket statement going back that far.

The thing that's really different is that hard times in the newspaper biz were more regional then, and today it's a horror show all over. In 1982 I was working on a Rust Belt paper and it couldn't have been more grim. Papers were folding, no one was hiring in that region, my paper was on the brink of going under and eventually did a few years after I left. I went on vacation in a Sun Belt city and without writing ahead, just calling when I got there, lined up three interviews and two offers, one of which I took. It was like two different countries.

It's easy to romanticize the 1970s, but there's a place near me that sells vintage newspapers, and even some of the major metros were THIN back then. They had pretty small copy desks. Also, they were more focused on covering the urban core -- increasing suburbanization has stretched resources further.

 

[ondeadline]

Many times in layoffs, the bean counters are going to target the people who make the most money, then they either don't replace them or replace them with kids who won't command nearly the same salary. They may do the job just as well, but the bean counters don't care. They're just happy to save some money. For many of these decisions, money has a heck of a lot more weight than job performance. If the laid off person has a big family that would be costly to the company because of insurance costs, all the better to the bean counters.

I love the enlightened view that old=deadwood. It's just as stupid as saying that a woman can't do the job in sports or that somebody can't do a certain job because they have a certain about of pigment in their skin. But I won't let my view of young people in our business be tainted by the stupidity of a few. There's deadwood at many different ages and there are productive people at many different ages.

I'm not going to stop bitching about layoffs when good people are sent out the door.

 

[fishwrapper]

I threw up a little bit reading that first post.

 

[PHINJ]

There is certainly deadwood at most newspapers. The problem is that layoffs/buyouts never work that way. You have to be the most complete idiot ever to think that such a thing is good for a newsroom.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

I threw up a little bit reading that first post.

I've never seen that attitude from Jared before. We all have bad days now and then.

To me this is illustrative of the anger and frustration that people are feeling. It's a natural inclination to look across the life raft and think we'd all have more Saltines if we fed that guy to the sharks. Normal to think it, bad to act on it.

I thought the post was unpleasant, too, but a lot of people are nearing the wigging-out state. Too much stress and sadness.

 

[fishwrapper]

Perhaps, one time, he should sit across from someone and tell them they need to take the buyout. Knowing full well the employee -- and friend at some level -- has a mortgage, a son, a daughter and a ****ing cat. And watch a proud man stare through you as a tear rolls down his cheek.

 

[dragonfly]

Perhaps, one time, he should sit across from someone and tell them they need to take the buyout. Knowing full well the employee -- and friend at some level -- has a mortgage, a son, a daughter and a ****ing cat. And watch a proud man stare through you as a tear rolls down his cheek.

Wow, that was really poetic. I got a lump in my throat just reading that.

 

[jaredk]

I have worked for more than 35 years in sports departments with as few as 2 people and as many as 60. And, as I said, every one of those departments today is larger than it was in the mid-'70s, dramatically larger in most cases. The real boom in hiring came through the '80s and early '90s in step with flush times in circulation and advertising. The boom was in many cases a prideful act of gluttony. One newspaper company president told me he ordered his exec editor to quit hiring -- the exec ed's answer was to give him the finger. Now the business is paying the piper.

My point at the start of this was to say newspapers are still better staffed than they were when the New York Times did the Pentagon Papers and the Washington Post did Watergate. Because we're ratcheting back to levels consistent with economic realities, as we ratched up with those realities 20 years ago, doesn't mean Doomsday Is Here. People smarter than me just have to figure out how to make money using journalism in new ways, and I have faith they will. Just this week, for instance, NYT, Gannett, Hearst, and Tribune created an unprecedented, heretofore unthinkable partnership to sell national advertising trhough those companies' operations.