BLOODBATH

posted by James Reel

    Yesterday, managers at the Arizona Daily Star fired 11 newsroom employees. Merry friggin’ Christmas.
    Publisher John Humenik, according to an article in today’s business section, blamed the firings on “slumping advertising sales and the real estate downturn.” According to the article, Humenik "declined to identify the employees but said they were offered severance packages.” Whoever wrote the story wasn’t very observant; all that was necessary to discover the victims was to look around the newsroom yesterday morning and see which people were cleaning out their desks, and whose e-mail accounts were immediately terminated, presumably so they couldn’t send out any subversive last-minute messages.
    According to someone I spoke to last night who is still employed at the Star, the victims were a mix of recent hires and long-time employees. I got the names of only about half the sacked personnel, but it seems that the victims were primarily copy editors and clerical workers, not the sort of people readers would develop any loyalty to, but people who are very important to newsroom operation. Nobody from the department head level on up got fired; too bad, because that’s where the fat is.
    According to my source, the operation was conducted very clumsily. The victims got phone calls the night before, saying “You haven’t done anything wrong, but we need to meet with you tomorrow morning.” The meetings were held downstairs in the TNI community room, well isolated from the newsroom. Victims were called forth one at a time, told they were being let go, offered some sort of severance package (rumor: three weeks' pay), then sent upstairs to clear their desks and vacate the premises immediately. Naturally, it didn’t take people in the newsroom long to figure out what was going on, and I can imagine the feelings among those waiting to go to their appointments downstairs.
    Only around 12:30 did publisher Humenik call a staff meeting. Presumably the excuse to hold off was to wait until more employees were present, but if that were true he would have waited until 3 p.m., when staffing peaks. According to my source, Humenik nervously read a four-page statement first blaming the firings on the economic downturn, then rallying the troops with a “we shall overcome” speech. It might have been more convincing if his hands hadn’t been shaking so much.
    No time for Q&A, but according to my informant, the ever-sensible Bonnie Henry did comment that she’d never seen layoffs of this magnitude at the Star. Humenik asked if she was aware of trends in the industry, making this sort of action increasingly common, and Bonnie reportedly replied, “This is the industry I know.”
    I remember that around 1990 or so, 11 reporters left the Star more or less at once, expressing disgust at reductions in the paper triggered by the loss of supermarket and bank advertising, but they left of their own accord, in high dudgeon; they weren’t laid off.
    At his blog, former Star reporter Michael Marizco relays a rumor that Jim Click’s automotive enterprises have cut advertising by 50 percent, sending panic through Star and TNI management; he further points out that stock in the Star’s parent company has plummeted from nearly $36 in March to $14 today. Marizco also relays an internal newsroom memo about other cutbacks at the paper, although it doesn’t mention staff reductions.
    In the Star article, Humenik blames slumping advertising for the firings; my source pointed out last night that ads are decreasing less because of the economy than because the newspaper’s circulation is declining. Here’s an idea: Instead of succumbing to panic and firing people, how about luring more ads by attracting more readers, by putting out a better newspaper?