Saturday, March 14, 2009

Monday, Monday....

Readers are hearing Monday will be the day several McClatchy newspapers announce layoffs. Prime candidates for a Monday announcement: Biloxi Sun Herald, The Olympian, Tacoma's The News Tribune, Bradenton Herald, the Belleville News Democrat, and the Idaho Statesman.

In comments, a reader thinks Charlotte and Raleigh will make announcements this coming week. Another reader says Charlotte won't announce until the 23rd.

Lexington? A mystery.

To see the latest tally of McClatchy layoffs, click here.

.
.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Centre Daily Times in State College, whose publisher resigned last week, has an employee meeting scheduled Tuesday.

Anonymous said...

Management has indicated wage reductions at The Olympian in addition to consolidating several parts of the newsroom with the TNT. The prospect of pay cuts (which of course follow a reduction in hours to 37.5-hour week from last year) combined with an added 60 mile round-trip trek to work seem unconscionable.

Anonymous said...

My observations are IMHO, only. Who knows, really?

Anonymous said...

Once again, that lavishly expensive and do-nothing Washington bureau is escaping untouched. They are not even having to give up their expense accounts, or membership in the Gridiron Club (which costs MNI thousands of dollars a year for expensive closed-door and off-the-record meetings with Washington fatcats and bigwigs).

Anonymous said...

There's no hyphen in Sun Herald.

Anonymous said...

What does it matter anymore, really? We've been teased with this news for WEEKS and WEEKS now. The entire staff has already developed high blood pressure and stomach ulcers, we're dehydrated from tears of worry. Some people have gone bald. Others have drowned themselves in the booze. So we have to wait until Monday. There really isn't much else they can do to make our lives miserable. It is a testament to complete and utter insanity that getting cut would hurt less than the last few weeks of sheer torture we've all been put through. Aren't all members of management and corporate supposed to go through some form of sensitivity training? If you did, you've pretty much failed.

Anonymous said...

--The entire staff has already developed high blood pressure and stomach ulcers, we're dehydrated from tears of worry. Some people have gone bald. Others have drowned themselves in the booze.--

You've just described every single customer of "The Pub". The Star was once described as the place where people from The Pub sometimes hung out.

Anonymous said...

To 3:11...you have described the state of employees from every MNI paper over the last year or more.

KRI papers had a 3 month honeymoon (just after the purchase) where they were mostly left alone (so long as they sent the profit check)and since then MNI have become the in-laws from hell.

The debt to buy KRI is blamed and the economy is another chunk but Corporate greed trumps both.

Where are all the Corporate and Washington Breau cuts to equal those of the rest of us?

Kevin Gregory said...

3:03 -- typo fixed, thanks.

Anonymous said...

5:01 must be a former KRI person. MNI never had the bloated corporate structure to begin with, but they have certainly perpetuated the fly-blown, useless KRI middle-to-upper management structure. Unbelievable.

Anonymous said...

5:15 PM must be a former or current MNI employee.

Remember: KRI = successful business that went out in style with a good reputation, for an attractive price. Did well by investors.

MNI = Failed business known for race baiting, leftist propaganda, hated and reviled by customers and employees alike. Robbed investors and continues to rape them.

I don't think you have even an inch of room to criticize anyone, or any thing and the facts bear this out.

Anonymous said...

Hey Anon 5:29?
I know common sense normally eludes you, but try to follow along anyway, ok?
Knight Ridder would have eventually succombed to the market, much as McClatchy has. Period.
There's much more to the equation than...ohmygod...editorial malfeasance.
If you read my 5:15 post you'd realize what a moron you are.
If you are criticising MNI for buying KRI, you're a short-sighted idiot who deserves that inbred overbite.
(It's less than cute, BTW.)

Anonymous said...

Still no word on Anchorage...

Anonymous said...

If you are criticising MNI for buying KRI, you're a short-sighted idiot who deserves that inbred overbite.




...and you're a long term visionary because MNI bought KRI? hahhhaha! Then the best you can deliver is a bunch of name calling? What a hoot.

Anonymous said...

I heard they're laying off the copy desk in Biloxi, and buying a hyphen with the savings.

Anonymous said...

i think Roanoke 5:53 left out a word: "If you are NOT criticising MNI for buying KRI, you're a short-sighted idiot who deserves that inbred overbite."
it was a bridge too far. there are people who would have been the God's of journalism if it worked. it didn't.
now, it's all just funny. mcclatchy is trying to survive on a product (newspapers) it has been telling readers for several years now they should abandon.
how much newshole did your newspaper waste telling people to go to the web to get more and get it FREE at a time when nobody in MNI had a clue (and they still don't) to make any real money off the web?
it's funny. i'm probably going to lose my job soon. but it's still funny.

Anonymous said...

I didn't leave out a word, trust me.
If MRI had not purchased KRI, they wouldn't have lasted this long-- they'd have already been in bankrupcy due to the implosion of the real estate category and the subsequent economic meltdown.
It is the former KRI properties that are helping keep the company afloat now, such as it is.
Like it or not, that's a fact.

Anonymous said...

That is not a fact, that is Pruitt's theory and nothing more. I will give you this though, with McClatchy's approach to ideological based "journalism", I can see how they would already be gone. The only thing keeping them afloat now is the fact that the creditors really hate the idea of bothering to take it over. A difference of 2 cents on the dollar or maybe 5 cents later.

Anonymous said...

7:05? Like I said earlier in the thread-- this is just my opinion. Everyone has them, including yourself. You just have a diferent slant on them, that's all.
I don't happen to agree with you, but that's just me.

What I do agree with is the demise of jounalism with any kind of centricity. I loved the William Randolf Heart thread on this blog.

Diversion from that is what's killed our industry-- much more so than the economy. The economy is just a single facet of "the perfect storm."

Anonymous said...

I don't happen to agree with you, but that's just me.



My "opinion was not just an opinion. It was based in fact. McClatchy would have defaulted in Dec of 2008 had the creditors not refinanced. Their reasons for not forcing default were specifically because they didn't want to run the operation.

You're right. That thread did hit home for a lot of folks.

Anonymous said...

I'm not arguing wht is in the recent past re: the December refi.
I was arguing what got us into this position, historically.

I still believe that neither company would still bear a resemblence of where they are today if MNI hadn't bought KRI.

And I don't buy that they would be better off without one another.

Personally, I think that it is frightfully unwise for a media company to be so short-sighted, so dependant upon revenue that they put too many eggs into a "revenue basket" and depend on them. Like Classified in general and real estate specifically.

Anonymous said...

The rumor at The Charlotte Observer is that the announcement will be the week of the 23rd. Of course, I would expect the exact same measures that have been at other MNI papers. We have been virtually in the dark as the Publisher and other upper management have told us nothing. Ann Caulkins keeps telling us that the leadership team is working with corporate. "Leadership Team" now that's a joke. More like a "Followship Team". They've never led anything. We have a large printing capacity but we're trying to do the same as a one-press paper. Mrs Caulkins has already informed us that they (Management) have tried to outsource printing the newspaper with the local Wall Street Journal printing facility. We have four presses! Why are we not taking on other papers that are trying to outsource their printing? Mrs. Caulkins has also informed us that The Charlotte Observer and MNI are both still profitable. If we're profitable, then it is corporate greed that is causing the lose of so many jobs. Isn't that what got the economy in the mess we're in? Apparantly we haven't learned anything!!! As long as management sits in their ivory tower (UNTOUCHED) and the workers have to pay with the lose of their jobs, nothing will change.

Anonymous said...

6:13, I would like to buy you a drink...a BIG one! But, considering my employer, I can probably only afford a water, but hell, i'd like to take you out anyhow! Well put.

Anonymous said...

Rumor has it, The firings and layoffs will start after she gets back from vacation.I guess you should get your vacation in before your pay cut starts.