"Yyyyeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhh ... if you could all go ahead and have your desks cleaned out by the close of business today, that would be greeeeeaaaaaat."
Posted on 11/29/2005 4:47:31 PM PST by churchillbuff
To: OSC DL All Employees Sent: 11/29/2005 4:30 PM Subject: An important message from Kathy Waltz
Dear Colleagues,
As I noted in my email dated November 16th, we are faced with important business decisions that will help position Orlando Sentinel Communications for future growth. I want to inform you of some actions announced today in departments across the company as a result of product changes and cost-cutting measures. All affected employees have been notified.
Never before has our industry faced greater changes than we do today - fundamental changes in consumer and advertiser behavior and media technology. This has put enormous pressure on "traditional" media companies to compete for consumer time and advertiser dollars. All of Tribune faces these same economic realities and is taking steps to improve financial performance.
Here at the Sentinel, we eliminated 33 open positions and separated 21 employees from throughout the company today. Those employees leaving the company will receive separation benefits. As our products continue to evolve to meet our readers' and advertisers' needs, our work and staffing levels have changed. We have identified areas where work could be done differently, consolidated or stopped altogether. We also have some retirements and other voluntary departures. In some of these cases, we will not fill the positions as a means to achieve further cost savings.
We will continue to innovate and change our newspaper to stay important and interesting. We are in the process of redesigning several newspaper sections to give the Sentinel greater functionality and efficiency for our readers and advertisers. You will hear more about these innovations in the coming weeks.
I know this kind of change is not easy. As always, I encourage you to talk to your manager or director. And though challenging times such as these stretch each and every one of us, it is also a time of great opportunity. We will continue focusing on what's important - expanding our audience, being innovative in the way we serve our readers, advertisers and communities, and growing revenue. Our company is strong and successful, and together we will evolve and change to adapt to new market realities.
Kathy Waltz
Translation: A smaller newspaper with a higher percentage of published articles being generic wire service pieces. Which means even more readers will drop the paper because it will suck even more than it does now, forcing another round of layoffs in a couple of years ... lather, rinse, repeat.
But you can be sure Kathy Waltz has her annual bonuses written into her contract for many years to come!
Is there a Madlibs book for these down-sizing/layoff letters where they just fill in the company name and specifications in the blanks?
Seems pretty forthright to me. The printed media is the first to go through these changes brought by the internet, and I suspect broadcast media will follow.
While my generation still clings to the newspaper, and watches network news each night, we're also reading blogs, following online opinion articles, and generally making the change to electronic media.
Can you envision a world where you can form your own opinion from the facts, rather than an editorial writer telling you how he/she thinks, and how you should think?
bump
"Our company is strong and successful, and together we will evolve and change to adapt to new market realities."
What kind of doublespeak is that? "...together we will evolve and change....."
Those folks are being fired. May there be more firings until the media wake up.
"Yyyyeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhh ... if you could all go ahead and have your desks cleaned out by the close of business today, that would be greeeeeaaaaaat."
Not familiar with them..Is this another commie rag going under? The only industry that lies and insults their customer base on a daily basis...oh forgot the news networks. FLUSH!!
"Our company is strong and successful, and together we will evolve and change to adapt to new market realities."
Huh?
Big layoffs, but they're "strong and successful". If my employer tried to put that over on me I'd be running for the hills.
In a free market economy businesses which poorly serve their customers will eventually die. Next to go: (Ft Lauderdale) Sun Sentinel.
Newspapers are some of the most profitable companies out there. They will lay off a handful like this to get their margins back to 30% from 28%. Just check out the financials from S&P500, they make big oil look bad in financial performance.
It's funny. All company memos of this type include a line like this. I always wonder if the executives that author these things if they really think that ex- or soon-to-be-ex-employees really give a crap about "future growth" or "shareholder value".
Kathy is Walzing through the graveyard.
Perhaps a more "conservative" editorial agenda would help.
Just fired off an email to the turd.
Small, independent community newspapers are coming along nicely.
The writers of the sentinel are at war with anyone they feel is not touchy feely enough. The staff writers are elitist, liberal, stupid and lazy.
The price of adverts is outrageous and they censor them to suit whatever liberal PC scheme they are hawking...very little news really gets through the garbage.
It's just a matter of time before they go completely broke.
They have managed to contaminate a large area under their main office and print facility with chemicals. So much for being a good citizen. (Hang on, I'll tell you what I really think.)
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