The Retch has gotten a couple of unofficial and obviously in motion lists on staffers who have volunteered to be fired, or been fired the usual way. A compiled list of 24 staffers is after the jump. All normal caveats apply.
There's apparently still confusion about who has left, who is staying and who just got moved around like a carwash rag. Here's a brief description from one Morning Call worker on how it all went down.
Most were told Sunday. For most of the newsroom, it was a long waiting game. At some point Sunday night, they decided if they hadn't heard anything, their jobs were safe.The names below will take you to a Google news archives search. As in past cases, don't expect much. It works great for some reporters, bad for others, and not at all for photogs and copy editors. Still, it's better than nothing. If you want you name off or on the list, just email me at inkstainedretch at gmail.com.
One reporter apparently got a message on her cell only saying she has a new beat. No details where or what. Another photog from one of the closed bureaus didn't get a call, leaving her to assume she has a job, but not knowing where she was supposed to check in today.
Don Bostrom •
Eric Chiles •
Eloise DeHaan •
Lois Doncevic •
Debbie Garlicki •
Dave Gaskill •
Christina Gostomski •
Emerson Heffner •
Beth Hudson •
Melanie Hughes •
Kirk Jackson •
Gordie Jones •
Karen Jordan •
Sam Kennedy •
Cesar Laure •
Bob Laylo •
Daryl Nerl •
Patrick O'Donnell •
Chris Parker •
Bob Raikes •
Rebecca Rhodin •
Mariella Savidge •
Pete Shaheen •
Wendy Solomon •
Ann Wlazelek
17 comments:
Reading the list eerily reminds me of reading the draft "lottery" numbers back during Viet Nam, seeing who is going and who is safe... for now.
God bless and keep all of you
Many dear friends on the list. Please, stay strong. I am thinking of you all. All the talent. All the years in journalism. All the local knowledge and connections.
Does anybody know their political affiliation? Better yet their political banner of flag they wave?
Incredible loss of talent here. I left the Call 18 months ago when the people on this list were all considered essential and many were bulwarks of the paper. Now gone to service a debt payment. What a tragedy. To those leaving: Grab the future, be brave and believe in yourself.
WTF does their political affiliation matter? If you don't know, then they were obviously professional journalists who called 'em as they saw 'em without regard for an R or D next to anyone's name.
I know everyone on this list but Ms. Rhodin, and I can tell you they are some of the best journalists in the industry.
What you should be asking, instead of trying to libel their reputations, is why was the management of The Morning Call so cowardly that they wouldn't even face these people? Why did they have to do this by telephone?
Why? Because it is SOP for management at what has truly become a rag. After all, these are the same editors who have run this paper into the ground over the past 10 years by sensationalizing violent crime because they were easy stories to report, by ruining lives without regard for anyone concerned, and by using anonymous sources to publish scurrilous reports instead of holding aources responsible for their own cowardly acts.
Nope, no surprises here. Just sadness for the loss of a once-great paper.
.... anyone notice that the 'contact us' list on mcall is replaced and missing in action? Now you can't even find addresses to congratulate(?) those who survived or discover who is left and what they are doing and where. All that remains is a contact for 'internships'.
This list's painful issue i would think for fired reporters, are
they of less value? They are / were not. And for the record,
who knows who is next.
Management may well be to blame, but also: print media is dead, or at least on life support.
Consolidating staff is no surprise when the price for ad pages have dropped precipitously. You can lay some blame, perhaps, on management, but when the same trend is reflected all across America, the bigger picture must be considered.
For the record, there are partisans of both parties, as well as apolitical types on the list. Big "P" has little to do with it. Internal politics (along with eliminating the highest salaries they could) played an important role. The management of this paper is clueless, at the VP and Director levels, and their friends and allies all still have jobs. The publisher blindly listens to his henchmen (note hench "men", no women in the power circle). There are plenty of cronies still walking around contributing little to nothing, holding meetings and playing "business", their jobs preserved at the expense of the product.
Anything that has a monopoly, is not great. It just has the right or wrong
people in it depending your point of view, too create a very big mouse trap.
Response to:
Just sadness for the loss of a once-great paper.
You may see a pattern, something that may educate your stupid little phototropic brain. Gee your an idiot. "WTF"
Responding to:
WTF does their political affiliation matter? If you don't know, then they were obviously professional journalists who called 'em as they saw 'em without regard for an R or D next to anyone's name.
The paper is still top heavy. Very top heavy.
"You may see a pattern, something that may educate your stupid little phototropic brain. Gee your an idiot. "WTF"
Responding to:
WTF does their political affiliation matter? If you don't know, then they were obviously professional journalists who called 'em as they saw 'em without regard for an R or D next to anyone's name."
A pattern to stupidity? If you're proposing some kind of litmus test as a judgment of those who were thrown out of work, then you're tiny little asshole that stinks big.
If not, make your point clearly.
"Management may well be to blame, but also: print media is dead, or at least on life support."
I'd love to have a business on "life support" that made more than 12% profit margin last year, and that's the average for the largest public stock NEWSPAPER companies. Not NBC/CBS/ABC/CNN/FOX.
The liberal bias of media, particularly medium to big papers like the Morning Call and the Los Angeles Times, is turning off readers in droves and killing the business.
People have alternatives now. The Internet. Talk radio. Fox News.
For newspapers to survive, they MUST expunge the pervasive leftist bias, and that means dismissing the liberal propagandists masquerading as reporters. That makes the political affiliation ABSOLUTELY relevant in hiring/firing decisions.
You have to be insane; to even ask a question like that!
Judges, Who gets financing, Who gets to be appointed positions that effect every god dam aspect of your life. Stop being a jerk. Go back to school also say no to deugs; because you got to be on something.
Respnse to:
WTF does their political affiliation matter?
If you look real close, I lay good money down all these layoff are political. To say there not is just naive, people at the top laid to much money down on one end of the spectrum. In my view there is clearly a movement in the works and it's not fair or balance just like fox news.
Response to:
For the record, there are partisans of both parties, as well as apolitical types on the list. Big "P" has little to do with it.
Post a Comment