Arizona Republic Journalists on Edge over Pending Layoffs
To be kind, we're not awfully huge fans of the Arizona Republic around here.
But we do admit to a camaraderie with some of the hard-working folks over there who're currently wondering if they're going to have a job come Christmas.
Word from inside the newsroom is that the latest round of layoffs is coming any day now. When management met with the worker bees just before Thanksgiving, they were told that Gannett didn't want to be hurtful by taking jobs away at Christmas. So (get this) the cuts would come earlier in December as an act of kindness.
"Great," grunts one Republic writer, "so I'll lose my job that much sooner."
Management also requested that current staff work "extra hard" to produce more copy so that when the cuts do come, there's enough to put in the paper. One reporter was urged to really ramp it up in the next few days to possibly protect his job. (That was as transparent as the kind offer to cut jobs well before Xmas.)
Another scribe noted that anyone with gray hair might do well to start looking elsewhere for work. Suffice it to say that the scribe in question is as gray as the gray lady he works for.
The hatchets already have beheaded some of the best talent (and institutional knowledge) at the paper -- Norm Frauenheim, Chuck Kelly, Rich de Uriarte, Suzanne Starr.
Who's next? -- Paul Rubin
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