Approximately 11 years ago, Ottaway Newspapers, at the time the owner of the Joplin Globe, decided to offer a buyout to veteran employees to cut costs.
Jasper County readers found out about the offer, even to the extent of knowing some who accepted it, but they certainly did not get the information from the Joplin Globe.
Hearing the rumor that the buyout offers had taken place, I checked the SEC filings for Dow Jones, which owns Ottaway Newspapers, and discovered the buyouts were being offered to employees at all of the newspapers. After that, all it took was a few phone calls and the confirmation of the local offers, and The Carthage Press publicized it, irritating the Globe management to no end, I was later told.
It turned out even better for The Press, when we landed veteran reporter Jo Ellis, one of those who accepted the buyout offer.
Buyouts and layoffs still happen at the Joplin Globe, as they have at various businesses across the area. The newspaper business is in a precarious financial condition these days and the Globe has had reporters covering it. In today's edition, readers learned about the impending demise of GateHouse Media's Girard Press and the sale of the Monett Times to Rust Communications.
The Globe is on top of the news in the journalism business...except, of course, where the Globe is concerned. Months have passed and we still have not read a single word in the newspaper about the layoffs on the Globe's own staff.
Apparently, according to the Joplin Globe editors' way of thinking, layoffs are only news when they are not happening at the Joplin Globe.
It's another sign of the newspaper's arrogance and its continuing disconnect with the community.
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