It didn't take new owner GateHouse Media long to swing the budget ax at the Pittsburg Morning Sun.
The conversation at Morning Sun Talkback indicates eight people were fired, including two with more than three decades of experience. The cuts reportedly included three from the newsroom.
14 comments:
Was Jim Henry axed?
Hank jumped from one sinking ship to another. Who got cut?
I'm assuming that GateHouse had henchman Chip Watson come over fire the eight people? That's in his job description.
I still have a Gatehouse windbreaker I'm willing to sell. Navy blue. Size medium. Hardly worn.
If Chip ever comes knocking at your door, you need to crawl out your window and hide! The Grim Reaper shivers when Chip comes calling.
At least they acknowledged the downsizing. How many positions has the Globe cut over the past five or ten years?
If you idiots knew anything, which obviously you don't, then you would know that this has nothing to do with the local Gatehouse office, or Chip Watson. GateHouse has been cutting positions all across the country with the papers they acquire. When they make these purchases they know going in that they are going to have to make cuts, since most of them were pretty labor heavy. If Randy was a real reporter then he would also post the numerous Google alerts that he gets that talk about the layoffs all over GateHouse. But instead he gives you only one part of the story and then has former GateHouse employees (Michelle, Kaylea, David, Ron, etc.) post comments telling everyone how the ship is sinking. It strange though...you all blame Chip, but it seems to me that everyone else has come and gone but he is still there. Interesting huh? Bottom line is that all decisions come from Rochester and are implemented from Rochester. Sounds like Randy is still bitter from being fired from Carthage.
I have written about GateHouse cuts in other parties of the country, as you well know. I have never written about Chip Watson or indicated he had anything to do with any firings. As for bitterness, I feel worse about what has been done to The Carthage Press (getting rid of the press, moving to a small building away from the square, setting unreasonable 9 a.m. morning deadlines for an afternoon newspaper that have put the newspaper out of the loop on many major stories, outsourcing the jobs of many locals and sending the money to Neosho) and what the company did to Ron Graber, who certainly deserved better for 15 years of service.
I didn't come out too badly. I make $10,000 more per year at my present job, not counting what I make from my books or the few hundred dollars a year I make from this blog. Instead of working 363 or 364 days a year, as I did at The Press, usually from 7:30 a.m. to midnight or 1 a.m., (if you don't believe that, just ask the people who worked with me) I get to work at 6:45 a.m. and leave sometime between 4 and 5 p.m. each day.
And judging from the quality of people who take cheapshots at me, I would say, I am also doing pretty well at reaching my target audience and doing what I have always liked doing- reporting news and irritating people who have no sense of humor whatsoever, and whose whole idea of intelligent discussion is to call people idiots.
Hey, anonymous 6:56 PM -
"all decisions come from Rochester" you say? Is that a defense of the company or is that perhaps part of the problem?
Regardless of whether the decision was based on economics, the old ratio of one reporter per 1,000 subscribers, or the lack of parking spaces around the building, the unavoidable truth is that when you eliminate eight positions from a staff of 30, the quality of the product is going to suffer.
Interesting Randy...never wrote anything about Chip or bitterness towards GateHouse. I wonder who posted this on December 26th on something called the Turner Report....It will be interesting to see what the removal of Cope will do to the area newspapers which have been affected so much by his decisions of the past few years. Chip Watson,the manager for the newspapers in this region, who has been with Cope from the American Publishing days through the years at the Northwest Arkansas Times and then back to Liberty and GateHouse, has been under fire in recent months and no longer has his chief protector.
The news could also spell trouble for Carthage Press Managing Editor Buzz Ball, whose close ties with the Cope/Bush family extend to the days when his father, Bill Ball, was the Daily's sports editor. Ball has done little to endear himself to Press readers during the months he has been at the helm.
I believe it was a post by the unbiased Randy Turner
I would imagine it was obvious to most intelligent readers of this blog when I said I had never written anything about Chip Watson, I was referring to any negative references. You will not find any of those. As you point out, I did ask what effect Randy Cope's departure would have on Watson, which is a far cry from being a negative or bitter comment. You show far more bitterness in your snide comments about my blog than I ever show in my posts about GateHouse Media, and I have often praised the work done by reporters at GateHouse papers, something which is never mentioned by the critics who seem to think I spend all of my time plotting revenge on GateHouse that happened nine years ago and for the most part involved people who are no longer with the company. The criticisms I make today concerning GateHouse Media are for the most part the same criticisms that are being made about numerous chains that have gobbled up small daily and weekly newspapers across the United States.
Ron Graber and Michael Davison did get a raw deal at the Carthage Press. And, it was Chip Watson who drove up to Carthage and fired them personally.
Speaking of Gatehouse, I have noticed that the Neosho and Carthage papers have evidently removed the ability to search through the archives (which sometimes required an access fee) in favor of a Google Search which seems to search the web in addition to the newspaper web site's current stories. I suppose the papers need the Google revenue, but it's a shame to eliminate our access to those archives, especially the old obituaries.
People always hate to talk about when they are laid off. But as it has become every day's news headline since Yahoo started it with cutting 1500 of its task force last year, now a need of platform has been in demand where people can express their selves in words how they are feeling about their company, whey the got laid off was that justified or not.
And every thing they want to tell anonymously.And www.layoffgossip.com is providing you that platform.
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