Monday, September 15, 2008
Beacon Journal plans another layoff of 11
The Newspaper Guild has been given a 60-day layoff notice for reducing the Beacon Journal newsroom staff by 11, including five reporters and three copy editors plus a photographer, artist and clerk. Photographer Ken Love who has already signed up for a buyout would not be included in that number, but the staff would then go down by a dozen.
Viewers should not take much much stock in the next graph since some could voluntarily step forward to accept a buyout and other factors would have to be considered.
If the layoffs were to be by seniority though some of the top staff members with least amount of seniority could be hit including reporters Rich Armon, Patrick McManamon, Lisa Abraham, Stephanie Storm and Malcom Abram, copy editors Susan Gapinski, Elissa Murray and Jamie Hogan, photo assignment editor Bob Demay, artist Rich Steinhauser and clerk Telli Carter.
It is doubtful, for instance, that the company would want to cut two reporters from sports. Armon and MaManamon are the only two Guild reporters with less than five years of experience. The copy editors mentioned above are the only ones with less than five years experience. Steinhauser, the artist with the least seniority, has been an employee for more than 13 years. Demay has been at the BJ for eight years; the other photographers for 11 to 37 years.
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4 comments:
It's Armon, not Ammon. And losing Storm is no loss. No offense to her personally, but a stringer can do her job.
That's ridiculous. Storm does an outstanding job and is well-respected within baseball and on the local college front. That would be a BIG loss.
it's sad that those wanting to take early retirement and save someone else's job can't do it because they're not old enough for medicare and cobra costs $1100 a month for a family. it sounds like there aren't a lot of good alternatives out there for those people, and therefore they'll just stay till they're 65 even though they'd rather not. p.s. the comment about storm was completely uncalled for. the layoff list includes some of the best, most hard-working people in the newsroom. granted there will always be people who don't necessarily carry their weight in a newsroom, but most of those are locked in quite well on the seniority list. the last time there were layoffs/buyouts, the paper lost some wonderful employees. it's sad.
Patrick McManamon, Malcom Abram would surely be missed. I agree that Stephanie Storm would be easily replaced.
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