Monday, March 23, 2009
10-day furloughs at PD, other Advance papers
Employees at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Newark Star-Ledger, the Portland Oregonian and other Advance papers have been told to take a 10-day unpaid furlough, Editor & Publisher reports.
There will be salary reductions at some papers.
Advance Publications is instituting mandatory 10-day furloughs and a pension freeze at nearly all of its daily papers outside Michigan, according to Steve Newhouse, chairman of Advance.net and a company spokesman.
Word of the furloughs began to spread last week, but formal announcements were going out today at most of the company's Newhouse newspapers.
Newhouse said the furloughs would likely be required within the next 12 months or by the end of 2009, he was not sure. He also did not have specific figures on the 401 (k) increase.
"It is certainly a difficult day. We are facing unprecedented economic challenges," he said. "Especially in Michigan and the ever-growing challenges to the newspaper business have been documented."
The Oregonian posted a story today stating its furloughs would only be for four days, but salary reductions of five to 10 percent would also be instituted.
Click on the headline to read more.
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5 comments:
The PD furloghs are for non-union types only. Guild employees will not be subject to them.
However... publisher Eggers cryptically indicated he would be "talking" to the unions. Wonder what about?
It should also be noted that the PD granted a "promise" to managers after a strike in the early 70s that they would never be laid off. None were during the recent layoffs, which is why there is currently something like 1 editor for every 4 reporters.
Here's my comment on the Charlotte story:
This also goes for the PD. What good are promises? Sheesh! The promises only exists as profits are good. The value of the paper coincides with the value of the employees.
Why don't they look at implementing innovation? The economy is NOT the reason for the newspaper industry's decline. The newspaper industry IS the reason for the newspaper's decline!
This industry has FAILED to implement NEW talent, NEW ideas and a NEW culture. It has the same old mentality that stopped working years ago.
Now they are cutting, cutting and cutting to the bone! They will fail at maintaining the value of print and their efforts for online usage will fail also.
You missed the point. The PD "promise to managers" isn't a good thing! The PD is way top-heavy with far more overpaid editors than it needs, but it lays off people who actually report the news? This is a big bone of contention in the Guild.
There is a deeper, more subtle danger to true journalism, and I see it beginning to be reflected on this blog. We see it in the "anonymous" blowhard who defines the state of journalism in comments on this blog, a JOURNALISTS' blog, and what must be done to cure newspapaers. How does this weasel think that any true journalist is going to pay attention to his or her comments, as he or she peeks from ambush? If you notice, internet sources and television stations and even newspapers now ask for people to vote, to tell who is the best in this or that, and, now, what is news and what isn't. Those comments are anonymous. Those outlets, of course, care nothing about the comments of the faceless, the anonymous. They want your email address. They are selling to advertisers as "sales leads," not to readers as consumers of news. Journalism, true journalism, does not live on anonymous comments. Even when sources were used as background, and were thus anonymous, what they had to say always was checked with people who would, in fact, go on the record. Harry, imagine if I had turned in a story about government corruption, and not one source was identified. Part of what has been reported on this blog is that now there are springing up "news" organizations that say, "tell us what you think is news. We'll print it." This anonymity is an evil influence and will kill any attempt at truly presenting the news. That's why the weasel is hateful toward seasoned journalists, who, the weales feels, are keeping others from muscling in. The others are the anonymous. We owe the readers responsibility. If what I wrote as a journalist was incorrect, you knew whom to contest.I just hate to see this anonymity, this heartless sniping, on this blog and I cannot take seriously the comments of cowards. How in the world can we make a transition to newer outlets and yet abandon accountability?
Bill O'Connor
Bravo, Bill .... Comments from people who are afraid to name themselves are not worth the time to read. I may have posted comments in the past that were not worth the print space but, damn, I always owned up to them. Keep kicking, maybe someday the wall will come down ...... Don
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