San Diego Union Tribune "buying out" it's GOOD reporters?

[cascadiance]

It's a shame! Really a shame! The Union Tribune in its endorsements, and many other parts of the paper SUCK showing itself to be more of a right wing hack than others. However, in recent years, there has been some real gems of articles published by it that have lead to some great events for us to be thankful. Amongst them was the articles finding out Duke Cunningham was involved in that real estate scam that basically blew the doors off of MZM-gate and other related scandals that we are still sorting out today. Another was the article that was just a little over a year ago that started the whole attorney-gate scandal investigations in full gear that revealed that Carol Lam was asked to be let go against her will here for partisan reasons.

One of the reporters, Kelly Thornton, that wrote that last article took one of these buyout offers that the Union Tribune offered, and is leaving them. Here's the Voice of San Diego's article on this. I'm sure they're licking their chops to see if they can recruit her for being on their staff. Larissa, if you look at this thread, perhaps she might be a good addition to Raw Story too! It would be a shame though if San Diego just has an empty right wing shell without a lot of the decent reporters that used to populate the Union Tribune here.

From:
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/01/09/economics/912buyouts010708.txt

Shrinking Union-Tribune: 'Doing Less With Less'
By ROB DAVIS Voice Staff Writer

Monday, Jan. 7, 2008 | Twenty-nine newsroom employees at The San Diego Union-Tribune have taken the company's buyout offer, further cementing cutbacks that have trimmed the paper's news staff at least 10 percent in the last year.

In total, 76 company employees took the offer, which provides a maximum year's salary and six months of health insurance. Most worked their last day Dec. 28.

Eleven news reporters took the buyout, including some of the paper's best known writers. Two arts critics accepted the offer, as did four editors, two photographers, two food writers and a travel writer. A newsroom source who accepted the buyout provided the list to voiceofsandiego.org. A company spokesman refused to confirm its accuracy.

...

"If you're going to downsize your reporting staff you don’t take a (federal law enforcement reporter) Kelly Thornton or Mark Sauer out of the mix," said one newsroom employee who accepted the offer. The staffer had signed a non-disclosure agreement and agreed to speak anonymously. "Those are the people you want to keep. To keep people interested in the paper, they take things away? It's all business driven at this point."

Nelson also pointed to Thornton as a key loss, saying he was "stunned" she wasn't begged to stay. Early in 2007, she helped break news that U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was being forced by the Bush Administration to resign -- before Lam had even announced the news. Her reporting in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks deeply detailed the lives of three hijackers who had trained and lived in San Diego.

"She's probably the most respected, reviled and feared reporter in San Diego," Nelson said. "And they're letting her go? That would be like The Washington Post letting Bob Woodward go."

...

[silverweb]

1. Big shock.

I've refused to buy or read that rag for the past 10 years.

[2 Much Tribulation]

2. The SDUT is hereby rendered more transparently what it IS 90% of the time....

[durtee librul]

3. Detroit papers did this as well at the end of the year...n/t

[Withywindle]

4. It's an economic thing, sadly.

I work at a small paper that has always had an unabashedly liberal focus. we let some of our best journalists go this year too. Why? Because the most seasoned and experienced people are the most expensive.

Why is this happening to the print media nationwide? Because readership has dropped off (so much free stuff to read on the Internet). that means advertising revenue, which pays for newspapers, has dropped off therefore. (And small advertisers can do so for so much cheaper or even free on the Internet).

[cascadiance]

5. Though, in the case of buyouts, that is before there's a "forced" layoff...

If you offer one of your best journalists a buyout and they take it, that to me is a sign that they don't value the best sticking around. I sense her leaving might have been a mutual decision. Given the way the paper's politics were vs. some of the reporters, it wouldn't surprise me. VOSD who printed this article has some ex-Union Tribune people working for it that express their negative feelings periodically towards the Union Tribune in editorials, etc. Perhaps she wasn't happy there either and this was a good opportunity to jump ship and have something to pad herself for a while while getting a better start someplace else.

But you are right about a lot of this being financial. Sadly, I also saw the start of this trend at Knight Ridder.com shortly before I left in 2001. Some of the tools I made to help populate the various newspaper web site content was part of an effort to enable larger papers to "fill in" some of their staff to populate the content of closer newspaper sites content and let their people go then. Actually one of the folks I worked for there I think headed up the San Diego Union Tribune online web site not long after I left. Not sure if he's still there or not. I'm wondering if he also got a "buyout" as well this time around.

[lurky]

6. And laying off the reporters makes it worse.

With all the bureau closings and newsroom reductions, most papers are just a cheap mash-up of wire reports and syndicated features, with some local reporting thrown in for color. The local stuff is usually pretty vapid, and the AP stories are already 12 hours old by the time the paper hits your doorstep -- while the fresh AP stuff is available for free on the internet. A paper has to have unique content to make it worth reading, and all the papers are eliminating their unique content. So readership goes down more, which causes more layoffs, and so on and so on. It's sad.