Posted on 04/15/2008 6:09:08 PM PDT by abb
The New York Times announced that it's all but a done deal that the paper will have to layoff staffers in the newsroom.
The drop-dead deadline is fast approaching for the staffers in The New York Times newsroom to raise their hand and volunteer for a buyout. An internal memo from the paper's assistant managing editor, Bill Schmidt, just went out and said that "we expect" that the buyout numbers aren't looking good and that for the first time the paper will be forced to cut the newsroom through layoffs.
"While layoffs have become all too common across our industry, this is the first time the newsroom as a whole has confronted that blunt reality, and we approach it with a heavy heart," he said in the e-mail.
The entire memo is below:
To the staff
About six weeks ago Bill Keller announced that the newsroom would need to reduce its head count by about 100 jobs, as a result of the worsening financial picture facing this newspaper and the rest of our industry. To that end, we put on the table a round of buyouts, and began seeking volunteers among both our Guild and excluded employees.
The window for those voluntary buyouts closes officially next week -- on Monday, April 21, for excluded members of the staff, and on that day and the next (Tuesday, April 22), for Guild applicants.
While we will not know the hard count until that time, every effort to handicap the outcome suggests that we are almost certain to fall short of the number of volunteers we will need. If that is indeed the case, as we expect it will be, we will -- regrettably -- be forced resort to some limited number of layoffs within the core newsroom.
While layoffs have become all too common across our industry, this is the first time the newsroom as a whole has confronted that blunt reality, and we approach it with a heavy heart. Even as people and jobs go away, the reductions will have a continuing impact across the newsroom, as we regroup and reorganize departments and even juggle some assignments to ensure we are able to continue to produce the kind of quality journalism that is our hallmark.
I wish I could offer some clearer sense of scale. An effort by the Guild to predict the outcome a few weeks back, based on what they knew from the people who had asked to get a buyout package, concluded it was too soon to tell if there would be enough volunteers, across the staff. Their own estimate, at that time, fell short of the mark, and the basic calculus has not changed.
Because the voluntary buyout window is still open for a few more days, and because we know many of you might still be contemplating what to do, we urge you to give the offer serious consideration, if you believe there is some financial advantage in it for you and your family. Each buyout we record before next Tuesday reduces the number of layoffs we will have to seek.
If any of you have any questions, or seek further information in the coming days, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
Bill Schmidt
Die you egg-sucking pigs!
ping
http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/04/new-york-times-buyout-staff-chass.php
Which New York Times Staffers Are Taking Buyouts?
Following closely in the footsteps of the top Newsweek writers who accepted buyouts from their magazine a couple of weeks ago, some of the most senior staffers of the New York Times are accepting retirement packages later this month. Previously announced departures include Pulitzer Prize winners John Noble Wilford and David Cay Johnston, as well as Linda Greenhouse, the newspaper’s legendary Supreme Court correspondent.
Other reporters and editors who have either already made up their minds or are strongly leaning towards accepting the buyout:
Investigative reporter Philip Shenon of the Washington bureau, education reporter Karen Arenson, Jane Gross, and Lawrence K. Altman, the staff “doctor” who has been writing about medicine and evaluating the health of presidents for thirty-nine years. Altman, an M.D., also broke the story of the disease that was later named AIDS in a famous article in 1981.
The deadline for final decisions is April 22nd.
Assistant Managing Editor Craig Whitney is reportedly considering the buyout, but he did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment. Nakana’ela Scott Nathaniel, a web producer for the editorial page who videotaped the second aircraft to crash into the World Trade Center, was one of the youngest staff members to accept the buyout. Nathaniel, who is 35, had spent most of the last five years traveling with Nick Kristof and filing video reports to accompany Kristof’s columns. Nathaniel also did several stints in the Baghdad bureau after the American invasion of Iraq. His wife, Meredith Artley, is the executive editor of the Los Angeles Times website.
Sports writer Murray Chass has also reportedly accepted a buyout, but he could not be reached for comment. Chass, Greenhouse and Altman each had their first bylines in the Times in 1969.
Union members could leave the paper with up to two years of the base salary in their job category, depending on their length of service. Managers were only given a maximum of one year’s salary as an incentive to accept early retirement. The buyouts were offered to ease the pain of reducing the newsroom staff by 100 positions to cut costs, as the newspaper continues to suffer declines in advertising and circulation revenue. The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times—like nearly all American newspapers—are also shrinking.
Ruth Strauss, the secretary in Cultural News for several decades and the go-to-woman for anyone seeking house seats for a Broadway show, retired last month. Veteran Business Day secretary Judith Spindler is also retiring. Others leaving include reporter Gary Rivlin, assistant culture editor Wendy Sclight and Steve Urso.
Dith Pran, the Times photographer who had been Syd Schanberg’s partner in Cambodia thirty years ago, was allowed to take the buyout, just before he succumbed to cancer two weeks ago.
By Charles Kaiser 04/15/08 1:06 PM
Subsidiary Boston Globe recently raised purchase price of the daily to 75 cents.
As if that would increase their sales.
Goodbye old paint.
I won’t miss you when you are gone.
You can start with Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd.
...........boo.....hoo.
A place like that needs an extreme top-down makeover. Nahhhhh. Never gonna happen. The schmucks in the trenches are going down before the elitists give up their ivory tower offices and editorial positions.
Will the last staffer to leave the NYT please shut out the light?
Rats deserting a sinking..........
Let the bad Times roll.
I volunteer Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, and Paul Krugman, three old nags who should have been put out to pasture long ago for the good of the nation.
The curse of the Duranty Pulitzer:
The coverup of the genocide of 100 million is alot of bad Karma.
A scientific study reveals that the NY Times paper is easily flushed down a standard toilet.
Cool!
“While layoffs have become all too common across our industry, this is the first time the newsroom as a whole has confronted that blunt reality, and we approach it with a heavy heart.”
Heavy heart...heck, I’m doing cartwheels..... and I’m not built for cartwheels. ;>)
You have tried to kill my country, your demise is not received as bad news.
...and Thomas L. Friedman.
Cheers!
While layoffs have become all too common across our industry, this is the first time the newsroom as a whole has confronted that blunt reality, and we approach it with a heavy heart.You can make book on Keller's persistent memory hole regarding New York Times layoffs.
Flathead: The peculiar Genius of Thomas L. Friedman
...The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I'll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here's what he says:
I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins
Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.
This would be a small thing were it not for the overall pattern. Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. It's not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It's that he always screws it up. He has an anti-ear, and it's absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that's guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.
Faster, please.
Homo lemmingsus liberalus.
Cheers!
I like that chart. Weak support off the phony rally. Declining volume in trading is the real killer.
NOW...ISN'T THAT A REASON TO CELEBRATE? :))
*** we should all CONGRATULATE OURSELVES (patting each other on the back).... Job well done.. well done indeed ***
Now, let's do the same with the fags of Hollywood... Don't give them any MONEY!... Don't and they will die as well. :)
OH OH End of NY Times sweetttttt
so then we all can still expect the N.Y. Times to get the facts and news wrong, just with fewer people.
......Rats deserting a sinking..........
The way I read it the Rats have chosen to go down with the ship. They refuse to leave and some undetermined number will be thrown off.
“Pinch” happens!
10 million seems to be a generally accepted number for the Ukrainian genocide, 60 million for the overall numbers for the Soviet state. 100 million is high.
Pinch likely gave himself another bonus to celebrate ?
/s
Hey Pinch, how’s that new building working out for ya?
The 100 million includes 60 million chinese in early 60’s while the leftist NY Times was still mourning Papa Joe and mocking the notion of the “Domino Theory” in asia.
OK, that’ll work. Actually, adding the Chinese, the number is considerably low, per Rummel.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
the number = your number, i.e. the 100 mil is low, if you include the Soviets and the Red Chinese. Just to clarify, I didn’t word that well, originally.
The subscription prices will be incredibly high (by today's standards).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.