Champagne wishes and caviar dreams - McClatchy VP slammed for staying in luxury hotel while employees are threatened with layoffs

A McClatchy executive with expensive tastes created a stir when he visited the Raleigh News & Observer last week.

McClatchy employees in Raleigh are a little stressed, and who can blame them. McClatchy's stock price is down 70 percent over the past year, the company has instituted cost-cutting measures, and layoffs and buyouts are in the works at other McClatchy papers. Last week executives in Raleigh spoke with staff about stiff measures including possible layoffs. It's no big surprise that morale is awful.
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So when Howard Weaver, McClatchy's Vice President for News, visited The News and Observer last week, employees were more than a little miffed to learn he was staying at the pricey and luxurious Umstead Hotel and Spa.

The Umstead Hotel and Spa is definitely a luxurious place to stay. Web site here.

At a meeting with local McClatchy employees, Weaver was called out by Joseph Neff, who happens to be an investigative reporter for the News & Observer. Neff asked why he was staying in a five-star hotel while the company was having financial struggles and low-level employees were being asked to sacrifice.

Howard Weaver later responded on his blog with a classic answer: it was a cost-cutting measure. You can read Weaver's response on his blog here. Key graph:

I told Joe I'd paid $210 a night. In a follow-up email, I also mentioned that I had checked prices before coming to Raleigh, and the downtown Sheraton where I usually stay quoted us $179. Since I spent most of the day at McClatchy Interactive, which has offices closer to the Umstead, I'd have spent more than the difference on cab fare traveling back and forth from downtown.

Blogger G. D. Gearino isn't buying it:

Howard also seems to be tone-deaf. He’s determined to make the argument that staying in the Triangle’s most luxurious hotel during a visit to Raleigh – and during a time of extreme financial pressure on his company – was a matter of fiscal responsibility. That’s right: He booked a room at the Umstead Hotel & Spa as a cost-cutting measure.

At McClatchy, fake cost-cutting is for the executives, real cost-cutting is for the little people.

Photos courtesy The Umstead Hotel and Spa.

UPDATE: Howard Weaver says he learned his lesson and will never stay at The Umstead again. And he adds this: "I do hope I can get some credit, at least, for having spent only $21.31 on dinner for both editor John Drescher and me that night."