Having gone through three layoffs cycles in six months -- and who knows, maybe another one after tomorrow's McClatchy conference call with investors -- I can tell you this ain't fun..
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
McClatchy columnist has layoffs in the back of his mind
Kansas City Star TV critic Aaron Barnhart, writing about layoffs at Time Warner Cable, has possible Kansas City Star layoffs in the back of his mind:
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Now close that barn door extra tight after letting all those liberal/ Marxist horses out.
Reporter given two weeks notice, and told if somebody retires or leaves, we may be able to keep you.
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Post-Dispatch Lays Off Seventeen, Including its Primary Crime Reporter
By Nick Lucchesi
According to a St. Louis Newspaper Guild member, the reporters were told they have two weeks left on the payroll, and that if somebody retires or leaves during the next two weeks, they may be able to keep their jobs.
http://tinyurl.com/5ehctw
Archer05 -- sheesh, sounds like an episode from The Office.
12:54: You rant about liberals and Marxists as if you know what you're talking about. You're talkng about my friends and former co-workers, who are scared and suffering. It's really easy for you and others to vomit behind the wall of anonymity. If this were a bar, I'd invite you to settle this outside, cause I know you're chickenshit enough to tangle with a 55-year-old guy who has two bad knees. What I also have, and you don't, is the guts to sign my name and tell you where you can find me:
Les Weatherford
Overland Park, Kan.
(Full disclosure: I'm no fan of McClatchy. I lost my job of nearly 22 years at the KC Star in November.)
Update: The Honolulu Advertiser
Remember those $5,000 and $7,000 pay cuts? The unions went to bat for these employees all right, they ended up with a worse deal. Paying union dues with a smile, are we? I would guess not!
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“…..the union agreed to a much worse deal than the one it rejected earlier, with the sole added provision that it can see management’s books twice a year and the empty promise that the Advertiser will make “every practical effort to avoid involuntary layoffs.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2009/01/26/daily77.html
Mr. Weatherford:
I am confused by your post. It contains neither mangled syntax nor wild, baseless speculation disguised as fact. Are you sure you’re posting to the correct forum?
Wes, are you saying Anon. 12:54 is not entitled to his own opinion?
Les, Your friends and former co-workers could very well be liberals. The media bend-over for Obama certainly showed a favoritism, that was shocking to many Americans.
Les my friend that was really unwise. There are a lot of people right here in the area that wish a great deal of ill will toward anyone from the Star. Have you tried going into a casino with a Star sweat shirt on? Warning, don't do it.
There are several KC blogs that make fun of the Star all the time. I would guess they have collectively, more readers than the newspaper. The Star started making everyone sign up to comment, because the comments were running 90-10 against them. Now, there are people that signed up that think the Star sold their names to marketers. The Star is doomed unless Zieman gets the hell out of there, and someone with new media experience takes over. I have never heard anyone say other than it is an unhappy place to work, NO ONE!
Anon 12:54 has put up with, and knows all to well the antics at the SF Chronicle.
So as to American Journalists losing their jobs, I am very sorry.
But as to beating another worthless Marxist, although it would provide great pleasure for me, I let the capitalistic market do my bidding.
Can you say,” Half cap, extra hot, soy triple latte”?
Les
I thank you for your words.
Those of still here are worried
and most of us should realize that
no buyout is in the future.
We're going down with the ship
unless management stops acting
like this is the 80's and money
is sloshing around to be wasted.
Spend what we have to pay off the
debt and spend the rest wisely.
Anon because I have to.
Good luck to you
Kansas City like you
This is the last time I'm going to respond to an anonymous post. We are dealing with human beings. To imply that they deserve to lose their jobs, especially since most of them have little or nothing to do with running McClatchy, influencing the stock market or controlling the economy, shows that perhaps your morals are as bankrupt as the Tribune Co. But really, most of us have more to worry about than opinions. People have mortgages to cover, college tuition to pay amd medical bills. One person I know has a wife who suffers multiple myeloma and is dying. Right now he has no idea what he is going to do when the Cobra insurance -- which costs $500 a month and soon will go up to $1,000-- runs out. Does his wife deserve to suffer because of what some people believe her now-jobless husband's political beleifs to be?
Just show some compassion. Most of these people are, or were, *working* for McC, not *running* it.
Your job could be next.
Les Weatherford
Way to go, Les. Screw the pissants on this blog.
Thank you Les for some perspective and truth. Being in production, I have nothing to do with the content nor do I wish misery on the folks that write it. I just want to do my job and support my family. I come to this site often because it is a source of information about the company I work for. I know that many McClatchy employees visit for the same reason and I appreciate the fact that I usually hear many things here first. I even encourage others to visit the site so they can read for themselves and decide what to believe. The downside is hearing the rude, offensive and hurtful comments from people like Kevin, Archer and DanD. At times I feel like all of them deserve the treatment that you mention, "A good old fashioned ass-kicking", but then I realize that being out of work or getting fired is probably the reason they act the way they do and then I feel sorry for them. The funny part is that I could be laid off tomorrow and yet I find it hard to imagine myself being as angry as these guys are! I guess there must be more to the story then what I read here. Maybe they were not loved as children or they have no love in their life. Or maybe they are happy having issues that have made them into the cold, cruel sub-humans they are. I post ANON because I am still working and if I am let go then I will move on and find another job, not sit on my PC and wish ill on others!
Yes, Les, the news room, editors and "journalists" did have a lot to do with the reason the newspaper industry is going the way of the 8 track tape.
You continually pissed off half of your potential customers with biased and faked reporting. You refused to report real news if you thought it might detract from your liberal agenda. You cheated and lied. Screw you.
You played up the economy and created a self fulfilling prophesy. You destroyed consumer confidence and you did it on purpose and you did it to push a political agenda. That you got caught in your own web is tough shit.
Yeah, it is too bad the printers, and HR people and the other non-newsroom staff are taking it in the shorts because of a bunch of arrogant assholes in the newsroom who think their mindless liberal arts education means anything in the real world.
Buggy whips
Cathode ray tubes
Carburetors
Your day has come and gone. You no longer have a lock on information. You no longer control the discussion. You no longer have a future. You threw it away. Don't look elsewhere for someone to blame. The whole industry is a gigantic self inflicted wound.
Say good night, Les. Turn out the lights.
Way to go Les! Most of these idiots are reporters that couldn't make it as such. That's why their so bitter. Just ask the people they used to work with. There is NO compassion here because they want everybody else to be a loser like them. They never address the facts. They just throw around words like marxist, liberal, troll. Just watch.
Hey 7:03 when did you get fired?
Way to go, Les. Screw the pissants on this blog.
~~~~
Said the biggest pissant on the planet and one of the primary reasons that the KC Star has no credibility.
Congratulations Mike, you did more than your fair share in screwing us all. You're a fraud and a propagandist.
8:48 Really a fraud???? Put your name to it pissant. Mike did. Afraid of losing your job pissant?
I seriously doubt if that was Mike Hendricks. More like a drunk Les.
9:09 Mike is right. You guy's are just a bunch of pissants. You know nothing about good people and less about good reporters.
After all the crap about the KC Star yesterday it seems that they know how to run a newspaper the best. See earnings released today.
Les the good guys always finish first.
Les, Your age is showing. Thinking that hiding the news is okay, and discussing it is only for a certain few, is old school.
Les, Sorry to say you come off as a bully. Your ‘fighting’ words were way off base. Everyone has a right to an opinion. You can agree or not, but you do not have the right to silence anyone that does not agree with you. That is the Obama election tactics many deplored. The KC Star did not report the aggressiveness of the Obama attorneys in squelching the fraud report about ACORN. You should be mad as hell about that as well.
The truth is, many j-school graduates have had a Marxist brainwashing. That is not news.
Anonymous said...
Way to go Les! Most of these idiots are reporters that couldn't make it as such. That's why their so bitter.
You don’t know that any of what you wrote is true. You probably are a reporter.
Hey Les 7:16 Needs to get a new line. The KC Star numbers were the best of all the papers.
Learn new words. We're tired of the Marxist, Liberal, and troll. It just shows what a shallow human being you are. You never deal in facts just throw those few words you know around.
What is it with liberals not wanting anyone else to have an opinion? Next we will hear an opinion was racist, that is the already worn-out drill.
“The downside is hearing the rude, offensive and hurtful comments from people like Kevin, Archer and DanD”
You just picked out the only posters that use a moniker. If you have been reading here, then you should know better than that. Skip past their posts if you don’t like their opinions, but smearing them says more about YOU than I care to know.
7:37 You forgot racist. Here's the correct list. Racist,Liberal,Marxist and Troll. No facts just throw these words around.
8:13 Smearing them?? Can you not read? I guess not.
I'm appalled at what's happening at the Star. Publishers and top management have had at least 15 years to come up with a new business model. It's not like the Internet just emerged in 2008. Why have they waited until the 11th hour to try and figure out a 21st century plan?
With a sad heart, I voluntarily quit the Star and left my journalism career last September. It was apparent that the paper didn't have a vision for tomorrow, let alone a year or five years from now. (It's a darned good thing I double-majored in accounting.)
As I walked out the door, I told a fellow copy editor that I wouldn't be surprised to see the newsroom become five or six people working out of a strip mall office space, posting stories on the Web. Lo and behold, that's what's happened to the Kansas City Kansan.
I miss being a copy editor and journalist. All of the copy editors I worked with, including Les, who was one of my bosses, worked diligently on the stories given to us to produce clean copy with appropriate headlines. They are real people who strive to do their job well.
To everyone left at the Star:
My thoughts and prayers are with you. Your workload must be hell and morale at an all-time low. Hang in the best you can.
Why have they waited until the 11th hour to try and figure out a 21st century plan?
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Kathy, with all due respect, they did have a plan all along. It just didn't include the employees.
Their plan is and was the same as any corporate raiders would have been. To milk and leech the company for everything that they can before it goes under. The sum of it's parts had more value than the company as a whole. By extending their debt as far out as possible they can continue to milk the company and divided it among insiders until the creditors/courts put a stop to it.
It is just business and frankly, not a bad plan from their stand point.
You are correct though. The papers will become a shell consisting of their editorial staff in a strip mall somewhere. That has always been the plan. Why do you think they want to sell all their buildings?
I have such mixed feelings about what's going on in the news industry. I'm a news junkie and there is nothing more valuable to me than quality journalism.
I also know many of the people at The Star who are getting the axe, and I know many of them to be fine, decent people who personally have no axe to grind and just want to do their jobs honestly and fairly.
Then I look at the product that hits the street and I cringe and wish the damn thing would go out of business before it does more damage to the community I love.
It's unfortunate that the people being laid off couldn't band together and put out a real newspaper. There's a lot of talent they've pushed out the door, and some have been the cream of the crop.
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