any word on "king" solomon not that i wish him any ill will but not a big fan of his work for the rockets
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2009/03/chron_cuts_the_jeff_cohen_memo.php Chron Cuts: The Jeff Cohen Memo, More Names By Richard Connelly in Spaced City Tuesday, Mar. 24 2009 @ 2:50PM Here's Houston Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen's memo to the staff about Black Tuesday: TO: Staff FROM: Jeff Cohen RE: Newsroom Reduction The Chronicle employment cutback that Jack Sweeney has communicated to us began this morning. Each department in the newsroom is affected in one way or another. This is a sad day. A newsroom is like family and saying good-bye to so many good journalists is painful. Along with you, they have built the Chronicle into one of the strongest regional newspapers and Web sites in the country. The Chronicle is providing severance packages and the Human Resources department is offering as much guidance and outplacement help as possible. These cuts are part of broader expense reductions necessary for us to remain competitive as we work through difficult times for both the national economy and the newspaper industry. With the job eliminations, we are making a number of alterations to the way we cover the city and produce the newspaper and Web site: -- Beginning Monday, the News, Business, Sports, Features and Opinion copy desks are merging into one production desk that will handle all of our daily, weekly, niche and special sections. -- The Business and News assigning desks are merging into six reporting teams. -- We'll combine many beats, reduce our daily photos and graphics assignments and we will make adjustments to the way we produce chron.com. Editors and department managers will give you more detail at staff meetings this afternoon or tomorrow. We also will continue to communicate with various memos about a restructuring of the organization, assignment process and work flows of the newsroom. Making so many changes at once is a challenge. Please be flexible and do whatever you can to help those around you. If you see a better way to do something, let me know. One thing will not change: our mission as journalists to inform, educate and entertain the readers of our newspaper and Web site and to hold government and other powerful institutions accountable. We will continue our long-term strategy of focusing on: -- Aggressive watchdog reporting; -- Daily enterprise that readers cannot get anywhere else; -- Being first to market with breaking news coverage online; -- Explaining Houston's diverse communities; -- Dominating coverage of the Houston's master narratives; -- Community Web site development and the harvesting of as many components of Web 2.0 as possible. We'll continue to do that with a remaining staff of talented journalists that numbers well more than all of our major local competitors combined. What's most important is our large and loyal audience of more than 1.3 million readers and users of our Web site daily (and 1.7 million on Sunday) who depend on us to help make their lives better. Many of them are facing the same hardships that we are going through now. Remember that they are who we work for. In closing, I want to return to those leaving today and offer them thanks for their service and best wishes for the future. Jeff And here are some more names: (We're sticking with bylines that people will know for the most part.) Bill Hensel, the Continental beat reporter Marc Carreau, NASA reporter Clay Robison, Austin bureau Steve Jetton, a longtime editor Michael Murphy, UH athletics beat writer MK Bower, Rice athletics beat writer Brad Hem, technology reporter Lyn Cook, oil reporter Other names to come, unfortunately.
According to the Press, Fran is gone. http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2009/03/chron_layoff_names.php
man if they kept solomon instead of fran i can understand in terms of $ only but for the most part I liked fran's doom is upon us views since they always contrasted with feigan's "this is what the rockets want me to say" articles i am pretty sure fran will move on to find something else pretty soon
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52N67F20090324 U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers By Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks. "This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin. A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs. Cardin's Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies. Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible. Because newspaper profits have been falling in recent years, "no substantial loss of federal revenue" was expected under the legislation, Cardin's office said in a statement. Cardin's office said his bill was aimed at preserving local and community newspapers, not conglomerates which may also own radio and TV stations. His bill would also let a non-profit buy newspapers owned by a conglomerate. "We are losing our newspaper industry," Cardin said. "The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy. Newspaper subscriptions and advertising have shrunk dramatically in the past few years as Americans have turned more and more to the Internet or television for information. In recent months, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, the Baltimore Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle have ceased daily publication or announced that they may have to stop publishing. In December the Tribune Company, which owns a number of newspapers including The Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times filed for bankruptcy protection. Two newspaper chains, Gannett Co Inc and Advance Publications, on Monday announced employee furloughs. It will be the second furlough this year at Gannett. (Additional reporting by Chuck Abbott) (Editing by David Storey)
that sucks about Fran. I loved his coverage back in the 90's and especially enjoyed how salty he has become. sorry to see him go...enjoyed his writing and views
If your friend is a copy editor and has a degree, I may have an idea for her. Give me a call. MadMax has my info.
I was going to make a "Fran Blindbury laid off!" celebration thread on the GARM but that was probably in poor taste. Thank God that loser is out of here. I never liked his attitude, and it just didn't seem like he really cared about his job. I won't miss his unnecessary and never-ending hatefest on T-Mac, and I won't miss his condescending attitude by the fan bloggers. Good riddance! He's employed by NBA.com anyway, so it's not like we should really be feeling sorry for him.
Man, they are ticking me off. And the BS about consolidation... they're going to "consolidate" themselves to such an extent that the Chronicle will become irrelevant. No one will want to get the paper at home when it's become a glorified weekly. They can get the movie start-times off the net. They can find the comics. They can get crappy sports coverage online (or great Rockets/NBA coverage here!). If the local scene, the local events, the local news aren't being covered, what's the point? I worked part-time at the Post and the Chronicle back in the late '60's. Not in the news division. It paid very well. I made more working one 12 hour shift on a weekend night than I could working all week as a bartender. Good honest work. There's just something different about working for a newspaper, even if it's in production or the mailroom. At least I always thought so. Sad to see it all disappearing. The Austin American-Stateman is for sale and has shrunk considerably. This economic disaster is turning out to be the nudge that is going to take a lot of papers down, papers that might have adapted in a different environment.
I guess someone who has to make decisions about layoffs at the sports section must have been a regular reader at Clutchfans. Can't really say I will miss Fran's condescending attitude when replying to readers commenting on his blog entries. Still, feel sorry for him and anyone who lost their job in this.
Laid off has to be the last resort. I wonder if most of the Senior Management in those companies even consider alternatives before making the laid off decision. There are so many ways to save costs and laid off has the most adverse impacts to the employees, the company and the economy. A lot of companies in Hong Kong has realized such impacts and they have taken other ways like salary cut, voluntary no pay leave, restructuring remuneration package, etc. and are trying the best to keep everyone's jobs and hopefully to survive over this economy downturn. Hate to see Fran go. I like his blog entries very much.
