In a column in today's News-Leader, Bookstaver explained the cuts being made at the News-Leader and throughout Gannett. He wrote about how little the firings would affect the newsroom:
"We did not reduce our reporting staff and will remain Springfield's No. 1 source for news and information."
That statement came as a surprise to Chris Brewer, who found himself unemployed Thursday. Brewer is a videographer, who often wrote stories to accompany the videos.
In a post written Thursday for his blog, The World According to Chris Brewer, the former News-Leader employee told a different story:
At 5:30 today, I walked out the doors of the Springfield News-Leader as a reporter for the final time.
Only three hours prior, I had been notified by Executive Editor Don Wyatt that my position as Multimedia Reporter had been eliminated by corporate. I proceeded to spend the next three hours wiping my work laptop’s hard drive, packing my important items and making the rounds to tell everyone goodbye.
The layoffs that the Gannett Corporation have imposed are a source of major confusion to many, including myself. Why, if the corporate folks at McLean say their future is digital content including live video, would they lay off a videographer?
That's a good question. Probably one for which Tom Bookstaver does not have an answer since he either never knew you existed, or for him, the truth is just a distant memory.
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Recent posts on Gannett and the Springfied News-Leader can be found at this link.
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4 comments:
At least it was a videographer- not a real reporter...getting rid of dead wood is not all bad
Anonymous, can you do me a favor?
1. Pour your heart and soul into your work.
2. Get laid off.
3. Have people trivialize your efforts.
Then report back to me and let me know how it feels.
Be blessed.
Chris Brewer
P.S. Much of the work I had to do with video reporting was just as much work, if not more in a few cases, as reporting for print.
The dinosaurs who think Chris Brewer was --forgive me, Chris-- IS a real reporter will be soon to follow him and longer to be re-employed.
The sooner folks get it in their heads that "real reporters" need to be able to be adept in all facets of news delivery, the better off they will be.
God speed, Chris.
This is sad news but, I wanted to say thank you to Randy Turner for the good coverage of this issue and the broader issue of what is happening in the newspaper industry.
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