There is so much that bothers, angers and saddens me about
the current news about the changes at Alabama’s three largest newspapers.
But what struck me strongest this morning, when I opened my newsPAPER
to see the news about workers’ notification of job losses, is just how
un-newspaper-like the story (company announcement) was presented, and, at least
for now, printed.
It was not until paragraph seven that the “lead” of the
story emerged – “about 400 employees statewide will experience an employment
loss.” There’s your story, almost at the end of the story, and this in a news
story about a news company.
When I worked for 15 years in corporate communications --writing
news releases about job cuts and reorganizations, acquisitions, layoffs and
closures more times than I care to remember, including the one that eliminated
my job and more than half of our department – this would not have been accepted
or even tried.
If we sent a news release to any newspaper or media outlet leading
with dribble-drabble about “new focus” and buried the information about impact
on people and communities, it would not fly with even a small town
reporter-editor, much less a big city one. And rightly so. And we didn’t try.
We in corporate communications – usually with former reporters in the mix –
knew that the media would not and should not accept and run as presented a news
release that buried the real news, the real impact on communities and people.
Reporter and editors would ask the questions about jobs and
numbers and impact and rewrite the company statement to lead with 400 job cuts. (That’s 400 out of how
many jobs?)
That would be the headline. It always was, and always should
be, because that is the NEWS.
But when the company doing the downsizing owns the media
outlets, the rules are obviously different.
To me, it’s just another disappointment.
For the reporters, editors, copyeditors, production, sales and
delivery folks who got their manila envelopes Tuesday, the disappointment and
worry is personal and devastating. Some apparently received the message that
they would stay and others were invited to compete for some 100 jobs in the new
companies. Others got the word that they are gone, job eliminated, and here’s
the process to find out about your severance package.
There’s no doubt what was the NEWS in the newsrooms and
composing rooms and print and delivery offices yesterday. I know that the
reporters and editors at these fine publications recognize the irony that their
news story was not really treated like other news stories. But, they have other
concerns, most of them, like finding a job and applying for that max $225 in weekly
unemployment. Good luck my friends, it’s tough out here, said the
journalist-corporate communications manager-turned office administrator.
It's a small thing in the big picture, I suppose, when media
companies bury the bad news in their news releases about job cuts, because they
can. I’m ranting, and I know it.
“Media company restructuring to eliminate 400 jobs statewide”
-- That’s the headline that should have come with this latest announcement
about digital focus changes, and it would have if this was an announcement by a
manufacturer or a retail company, service center, sawmill, steel mill or a power plant.
And, it really doesn’t matter if this headline appears
digitally (which it does in this blog) or in print.
It’s the news, it’s
reporting. It’s a free press in a free country.
And we’re going to miss it when it’s gone.
