Compliments of Mike Marizco, here is an updated list of the 11 editorial staffers laid off by the Star:
- Jane See White, copy editor
- Jeff Commings, neighbors reporter
- Dave Castelan, graphics designer
- Jon Hassen, network administrator
- George Campbell, copy desk chief
- Pat Benton, copy editor
- Paul, last name unknown, sports
- Carrie Ord, accent news assistant
- Tiana Velez, business news assistant
- Lupe Ortiz, accent news assistant
- Seth Mauzy, position unknown
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.
The Star, like so many other unimaginative newspapers, has a fetish for “community involvement” and reader feedback – in short, lazily letting the marketplace determine what should fill the news hole rather than trained intelligent observers deciding what’s worthwhile. In other words, reflect rather than lead. OK, why not let the public decide who in the newsroom should be pink-slipped. Just as they let readers decide the comics, only on another level. The Star should publish a list of all newsroom reporters with a space for readers to mark an X. You may mark up to eleven Starlings. A drawing of all entrants will be held, and the winner gets a book of photographs by the late Jack Sheaffer to remind us all of when the Star was an excellent newspaper.
Okay I’ve read enough of this nonsense.
Yeah Yeah 11 people got laid off. How sad.
Welcome to America in 2000 fer Jimminny Chirst Buddah’s sake!
How much ink, electronic or otherwise, did the Weekly pundits devote to all the miners who lost their jobs when copper took a nosedive (Yeah it’s good to be a miner again. Looks like those Canadians are going to bring some work to the Santa Ritas).
My guess is 99.9 percent of the bloggers are journalist types or in media somehow. How about a show of hands?
Am I right?
Yeah you know I am.
And yes, folks, most biz do layoff people around the holidays and often without three weeks notice.
Just come in, get your last check and have a nice life.
Or better yet the place just closes the door.
Anyone remember Krispy Kreme?
Didn’t see much hand wringing then.
But I’m guessing there’s not too many doughnut makers here (although journalists are like cops when it comes to said products consumption).
If you ask me, most folks around here just want to Star bash a bit.
Jimmy B. boasts about a “four person staff” as if that were something to be proud of. For the most part the Weekly runs on freelance power (no benefits and paid beans). What local person got paid for that cover story this week eh?
Bottom line kiddos a biz is a biz is a biz.
And when journalists smell the breath of the axeman coming their way they realize the jig may be up and they may have to get 9-5 jobs in marketing or public relations or move out of dodge.
But what happens when your a big Tucson fish?
Does anyone in say Debunk, Imaho really care that you spent 10 years rubbing elbows with Mayor Stepdown or know the names of every cactus this side of Mexico?
Big scary world.
So welcome kids to the party.
And Happy Holidays to all.
Marlow, why are you surprised that journalists would want to discuss this?
The blog hasn’t proven to be a massive draw for the Average Joe web surfer, so people are going to talk about what they want to talk about.
What do you want to talk about?
Reminds you of the Woestendiek days at the Star, doesn’t it?
The Woestendiek years were the Star’s golden era — a Pulitzer Prize, several other national awards and a staff that covered this community better than any I’ve seen in my 47 years here. Woestendiek found the resources within his budget to let the staff pursue the difficult stories that took months and months to nail down and encouraged editors and reporters to shoot for excellence instead of mediocrity.
My earlier post about having worked with Lupe Ortiz, George Campbell, Jon Hassen and Rutha Grigsby (who, I’m glad to read, apparently wasn’t laid off after all) omitted Dave Castelan, a good friend and fine artist and the newly added Pat Moran Benton, another friend who was a fine reporter before becoming an editorial writer and later a copy editor. Dave and Pat represent another 50+ years of community memory and contacts the Star has lost in its pre-Christmas purge.
— Marlow, why are you surprised that journalists would want to discuss this?
Not surprised. And of course I feel for those w/out work. It sucks and I’ve been there more times than I’d like. A job is a job and we all need pay. But I’ve seen first hand huge layoffs (50 + people and up) in the service sector and it was like pulling teeth to get someone to write about it. In fact I had friends call the Star, Weekly and Citizen asking them to cover what was going on (hint ~ 1996/98) and no ink was shed until a press release went out from the bossman. And guess what? The copy that did hit the light of day did not cover how lives were changed, homes were endangered, people started drinking and jimmmy didn’t get new shoes for the holidays. Nope-sir-e-o. All ya saw was: company x is restructuring blah-blah-blah with a quote by some axe-sharpening back-slpapping human resource lacky.
So point is: Fuck media watch and start an unemployment column if people really care about the complete human condition rather than the wolf at their door. It happens every day and just think what is pending with the economy teetering on the brink of a new pres., war and so on.
— The blog hasn’t proven to be a massive draw for the Average Joe web surfer…
True. Makes me wonder what I’m doing here. Time to move on.
Sin Twister: Actually, a lot of people are reading this blog. It got almost 80,000 page views last month, according to the Web heads.
Thank you for setting me straight. Just an FYI — 70,000 of those 80,000 page views were *ME*.
I’ve been trolling around these parts since last May or so… What kind of progression has there been in page-views? It has to have gone up a lot in the last few months.
It’s been a consistent progression. And I know all of those page views weren’t you, unless you keep changing your IP address, Twister. Our “unique visitors” number is around 30,000, last I heard.
Tom Miller — you are so right on.
That said, it’s Saturday and the Star’s Accent section is not leading with a shoe fettish, I mean feature.
Guess things are slipping!
You can already see the results from the copy desk purge.
PS — the Star staff directory (still) lists Seth Mauzy as a news assistant, without noting the department to which he is/was assigned. One would assume Paul in sports is also a news assistant. That group seems to have been wiped out in this purge.
Paul Brown is in staff list as a sports news assistant.
Marlow, you just don’t get it, do you?
We covered these 11 layoffs because of what they symbolize in terms of the fate of daily newspapers and journalism. Dailies have, for years, been hacking themselves to keep their 20-40 percent profit margins intact. They’re responding to challenges (the Internet, Craigslist, etc.) not by innovating or reinvesting, but by trying to save money in the short-term. And as a result, they’re dying. No matter what Michael Chihak says.
This is not to say alt-weeklies are immune from layoffs. The Weekly has laid people off here and there over the years. Just this week, the Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper announced significant staff cutbacks. And this is not to say that layoffs aren’t sometimes justified.
The point is that this is the latest in a trend of cutbacks that’s going to lead to the death of many daily newspapers as we know them.
Of course it’s a bigger deal, overall, when more people are laid off in other industries. But as a publication that covers the local media (because nobody else does; we need to fill that niche), heck yeah, we’re going to cover this.
As for me “boasting” about a four-person staff, I have never done that. I wish we had a larger staff, and have fought, largely (though not totally) unsuccessfully for that in my almost five years here. My boasting is not about the size of the staff; it’s about all that the staff (and freelancers) manage to accomplish despite its small size. I am very proud of our small staff, not the fact that the staff is so small.
So here is how it went down in the Star newsroom. First thing in the morning, the laid-off staff was informed that they would have 30 minutes to vacate their desks while paid guards stood by. They had to put all their belongings in boxes and were escorted out of the building. Immediately after their departure, management spoke to all the remaining employees and firmly informed them that they needed to get back to work immediately — no milling around, no dawdling.
The Star hired a consulting company to walk them through this process. I don’t know the name of the consulting company, but they were paid a nice fat sum of money to help the Star figure out how to fire some of its best employees.
Paid guards? Sheesh, someone was scared.
Question here: How many employees are left after the 11 were dumped? How big a percentage is 11 out of the total staff? Morale among the remaining group must be interesting.
There must’ve been more layoffs. My paper didn’t arrive this morning and when I called to tell them, all I was able to do was record my complaint. No delivery person and no customer support person. Bummer.
The fact that we can no longer talk to anyone in Tucson about delivery or customer service issues is a crime. I wish I had the numbers of people they laid off so some out of town call center and or recording dould “help” me.
Clearly there has been an immediate effect — notice the number of corrections? And corrections to corrections!
If the Arizona Daily Star laid off 11 editorial staffers you can be many of the other departments had layoffs too.
I’m guessing…
— Lots of advertising department people (especially the ones handling classifieds, since much of their business is being gutted by Craigslist)
— Loads of circulation people.
— Tons of custodians (people can take out their own garbage!)
— Accounting clerks etc.
…probably a good 50 or so additional people were laid off in addition to the news folks.
Just a guess.
— …probably a good 50 or so additional people were laid off in addition to the news folks.
Finally someone gets it!
Geeze how many hints does a fella or gal have to drop rond here.
By the way…
In less than 24 hours, the Federal Communications Commission plans to vote through rules that will let the largest media companies swallow up more local newspapers and TV stations.
If you care about the dismal state of the media, we need you to stop what you’re doing and lend a hand.
We need to get at least 100 calls to every U.S. senator before 5:00 p.m. today asking them to pressure the FCC to delay tomorrow’s vote. The Media Ownership Act of 2007 (S. 2332) is waiting for a vote on the Senate floor. Your call will make a real difference.
We have 24 hours to Stop Big Media. Call your Senators today.
Senator Jon Kyl
(202) 224-4521
Senator John McCain
(202) 224-2235
Calling your senators is really easy and extremely effective in showing support for legislation. Here’s what you can say:
“I am calling to urge the Senator to support the Media Ownership Act of 2007 (S. 2332). This important legislation will stop the FCC’s plan to further consolidate media across America. The FCC’s plan will drown out the few remaining independent voices and create less local reporting and quality journalism. Thank you.”
_____-
From the NYT Today:
Flawed Media Plan
From New York Times, December 17, 2007
Decades ago, when most Americans relied on just a few news outlets, it made sense to bar companies from owning a newspaper and a broadcaster in the same city and limit the number of TV stations a single company could own. That was the best way to ensure that Americans had many different sources of information and the diversity of views needed for a healthy democracy.
The world has changed, with dozens of cable channels and endless Internet sites, and it makes sense to reconsider the rules. Still, it is hard to understand the logic behind the way Kevin Martin, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, wants to relax the 32-year-old ban on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership.
Mr. Martin has proposed loosening the rules to allow newspapers in the nation’s 20 largest cities to combine with a TV or radio station as long as it is not one of the top four and the merger leaves at least eight independent media voices in the market. Mr. Martin has said his plan — on which the commission is scheduled to vote tomorrow — would be a lifesaver for local newspapers that have been losing readers and advertisers to the Internet, allowing them to share the costs of news-gathering across a newspaper and a TV station.
But you don’t get one healthy media company by combining two sick ones. The strategic challenge for newspapers is not cutting costs, but how to attract a larger share of online advertising and make money off the millions of people who read them free online.
Mr. Martin’s plan, moreover, could dangerously reduce media diversity. Not only would the mergers allowed under the rule change eliminate independent voices, but they also might crowd rivals out of the news business. A study of F.C.C. data by consumer groups indicated that less news is broadcast in cities where companies have been granted waivers to the rules to allow them to own both newspapers and broadcasters.
While these concerns might not loom so large if the proposals were truly limited to the biggest cities, Mr. Martin’s proposal includes loopholes that could open the door to consolidation on a much broader scale: depending on the concentration of the media market, it could allow both mergers in smaller cities and mergers involving top-four TV stations if the companies were in financial distress, promised to increase investment and the amount of local news, and vowed to keep their editorial lines independent.
For all the technological advances that have shaken American media over the last 30 years, remarkably little has changed about who produces the local news. Internet outlets repurpose and comment on the news. A few cable channels provide national news. But in many small and even medium-sized cities there are only two entities that put money into local news-gathering: the local newspapers and the TV stations.
Mr. Martin has said he is willing to work with other commissioners to find language ensuring that there is a “high hurdle” for mergers that are in smaller cities or involve top TV stations. That is welcome. But as it stands, his proposal would potentially allow an unhealthy media consolidation that would not serve the public good.
ps: previous brought to you by:
http://www.freepress.net
http://www.stopbigmedia.com