Following is the memo that Flint Journal staffers received today (Tuesday, Nov. 11):
Sent: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 5:24 pm
Subject: Wednesday announcement
Dave Sharp will be making an announcement to the staff on Wednesday, discussing major changes that we will be making in the way we operate our eight newspapers in Michigan.
Dave will address the editorial staff as soon as we clear deadline in the morning, right around 9:05 a.m. That conversation will take place in the new training room on the mezzanine level.
Please plan to attend that meeting if you are able to. Throughout the day, Dave will continue to give the same presentation to employees in other departments. If you can't make the meeting for editorial, you are welcome to attend any of the other sessions.
Here's the schedule. All of these sessions will also be in the mezzanine training room unless noted otherwise.
9:45 a.m. -- Advertising
10:15 -- Accounting, Human Resources, Marketing
10:45 -- Circulation
1 p.m. -- Press and mailroom (at the PDC)
4:30 p.m. -- Open session for any employees unable to attend earlier sessions
After Dave makes his announcement, I will begin meeting individually with newsroom employees to discuss how these changes affect you and what your options are. My goal will be to speak to everyone yet this week. I understand that you want and need answers, and now that Dave will be laying it all out for you, I look forward to addressing your questions to the fullest extent.
Tony
This, of course, will only be more bad news. A long time, part-time employee of the Flint Journal was fired on Tuesday, one day ahead of the big announcement. The employee, who worked for the community newspapers division, was a great writer, but admittedly a bit of an eccentric.
I'm not putting his name in this item because I haven't talked to him since the deed was done. It's hard to understand why he would be let go now. Any issues the paper had with his eccentricities have been there for years. He was a major copy producer and, as I already said, a beautiful writer.
He kept unusual hours, but he has kept them for many, many years without any consequence, until now.
Anyway, he and I used to cover the same beat and although I have not talked to him since I left the paper, I wish him well now and hope that he finds something else soon.
Somehow the professional editors who used to work in the community news division were able to work with this writer, but apparently the new editors couldn't adapt.
One nice thing though. On the day after they fired the writer, they put out a little spread of English muffins and snacks for the remaining writers on Tuesday. Kind of a going away party for the guy who had already gone away.
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13 comments:
Like I always say, nothing like a refreshing English muffin after a good bloodletting.
You can't make this stuff up, can you?
Most on the staff were not aware of the firing until late Tuesday or this morning.
What the hell is your problem?...Here some of these people are losing their livelihood and you feel it's your job to "inform the public" on the status at the Journal. You got your cushy buyout some months ago. But can't seem to let the job go. I ran into you one time in public and you thought you were the cats' ass because you were "with the Flint Journal." Now you're dogging the paper like they screwed you over. Why don't you let these people be?...Let them deal with their circumstances and quit trying to be the "all informing" reporter. You're retired, dude. Or maybe you forgot. The Journal is just another company effected by such a sluggish economy. I will admit the newspaper industry as a whole is dying, mostly because of old school thinking but no one needs your "johnny on the spot, Les Nessman" reporting. I'ms ure you'll delete this which wouldn't surprise me. Free from editors? yeah right!
(I deleted my initial response to the above after thinking about it for 30 seconds. Here's the revised response.)
Well, you're wrong. I have only deleted two posts in 8 months, other than the ones from reporters inside the paper who ask me not to publish them.
Those I deleted because they used the names of real people.
It's called reporting. There are people inside the newspaper who are interested in getting their stories out.
I feel badly for the folks inside the Journal and have left this outlet open for them because they have no other outlet.
The newspaper does not report on its own business dealings, even though it feels free to do it to every other business in town.
Goose, meet gander.
If there weren't people inside who wanted to get the word out I would be content to write about anything else.
As for thinking I'm the "cat's ass," I'm allergic to cats. So I'll have to think I'm another kind of ass.
As to your original question as to "what the hell is your problem?"
It has to do with management types who listen to no one but those who polish their apples and who can't see the forest for the trees.
As I have consistently said, the Journal and its parent company have been very generous in their buyouts. Many of us are grateful for the buyouts, but not so grateful that the management was so slow to react to a new reality which left many outside of a profession they loved too soon.
So just to be clear, when people on the inside stop feeling it is important to make known what is going on (call it good ol' whistle-blowing) I'll stop writing about it.
Actually, I may be retired, but I'm working again. By retiring early my pension check is smaller than expected. With the new economy it may be awhile before I'm actually "retired."
But thanks for your interest.
Reference most of the staff not being award of the firing until late Tuesday or Wednesday morning. A trusted confidant suggested that anyone that didn't know by Tuesday morning is probably not a very good reporter.
I guess most people knew of the employee's firing by Tuesday mid-day.
My trusted source says the firing still hasn't been announced. Like you said he kept unusual hours, and his stuff is still at his desk, so it appears he's still working. Not everyone in the office talks to him much, says my source.
And the "little spread" was for three staffers' birthdays. Jerk.
The employee has been fired. That's simply fact.
He's been told his stuff will be packed up for him.
Dude...he was LIVING at the journal...He's been doing that for a long time. He finally got called out on it...He SHOULD be gone.
He's been doing that for 15 years and, yes, he's eccentric and keeps much different hours than most.
They fired him the day before they were going to separate a lot of the part-timers anyway.
My question is only on the timing. Why not let him go with the rest of the part-timers and be done with it without the stigma of firing him after such a long time.
I'm only questioning the timing, I understand he had been warned to leave the building by midnight and he left at 12:15 a.m.
Anyway, what about the party? I think you should admit your post was false about that. Whoever your source is got it wrong
I feel bad for the staffers just celebrating some birthdays. Give them a break.
I still feel worse for the guy who got fired.
This was not a comment on the reason for the party, it was the timing, again that is the issue.
My editorial comment about the "going away party" was my own. In reality I didn't assume anything about why the party was given, again, I hate to keep repeating myself, it was the timing.
One more thing:
Happy Birthday to the three employees!
Jim
p.s. I mean it.
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