Trouble down Newhouse way

[EStreetJoe]

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.

 

[Clever username]

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

 

[BYH]

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.

 

[Clever username]

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.

 

[BYH]

Corporate speak.

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

 

[Clever username]

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

 

[spnited]

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.

 

[Buck Hill]

Corporate speak.

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

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

 

[BYH]

Corporate speak.

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

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.

 

[slappy4428]

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.

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.

 

[Bob Crotchet]

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

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.

 

[Pencil Dick]

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.

 

[sportsed]

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

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.

To be clear, the Newhouse pledge is that it won't lay off its employees. It's not a guarantee that its employees hold the same position in perpetuity.

For example, when newspapers moved past its lead type days, Newhouse newspapers offered to retrain its employees whose positions were eliminated to develop new job skills.

So Marty Mule was one of the many people in this business to have his position eliminated, but instead of simply offering him a buyout and an insincere thanks for his many years of service, the Times-Picayune offered to retrain him for another job. There was a buyout on the table if he didn't like the option available to him, but how is this considered bad business on the part of the company?

Bad business is for a company to continue to hemorrhage red ink on the financial ledger without making the necessary decisions to remain economically viable for the long term. The alternative, of course, is to keep everyone gainfully employed until the company goes bankrupt, at which point everyone's job is then eliminated and no buyouts are offered because there is no money left.