01 Aug 2013
Newspaper layoffs and Journalism Jenga
I see a lot of online angst about the chopping of close to 50 jobs at The Plain Dealer, my former employer. Fair enough; that’s a lot of people — a lot of good people. And according to reports, 20 more were cut at the weekly Sun papers, also owned by Advance and soon to
31 Jul 2013
Is there any such thing as a humane layoff?
Today, a lot of people I worked with are being told they’re unemployed. While many of us volunteered for The Plain Dealer’s layoffs, the cuts will go deeper. The company sent out an email yesterday afternoon telling everyone in the newsroom — managers included — to wait by their phones this morning to find out
31 Jul 2013
The ‘I told you so’ post
Fifteen years ago, I already knew what would happen to me in 2013. And I have proof. In 1998, I was the editor of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer’s personal finance and personal tech sections. That included writing a weekly section-front column. Having admitted in my first column that I was not a personal finance expert,