Comments on: AJC to departing employees: Shhhh!

By: thomas_klebanow

thomas_klebanow — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:36:49 +0000

And by cheapest I mean she gave less to charity than any other billionaire.

By: thomas_klebanow

thomas_klebanow — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:30:21 +0000

If you watched The Wire, you know Julia Wallace is the real-life incarnation of this character:
http://www.hbo.com/thewire/cast/characters/paper/thomas_klebanow.shtml

And I love that Anne Chambers Cox, the fraking owner herself, was listed by Business Week a few years ago as being the second cheapest billionaire in America. Buffett was No. 1, and then he decided to give most of his wealth to the Gate Foundation. So Anne Baby, you’re No. 1!!!

By: excaliber

excaliber — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:15:22 +0000

what utter nonsense, and typical of the kind of bullshit attitudes that got the newspaper industry into the pit it now finds itself in. there’s no reason on earht why an employer should not make a no-badmouthing rule when doling out thousands of dollars in severance. go mount a cross, it suits your saintly self-image./]

By: Angela Connor

Angela Connor — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:03:23 +0000

I’m curious as to how they go about ensuring that the agreement is being upheld. Is there someone on staff running daily Google searches and sorting through blogs to see if this former emplyee is leaving “disparaging” remarks? Also, what constitutes “disparaging?” I
am assuming it’s all laid out in the document but it seems somewhat subjective.

By: ed

ed — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:18:02 +0000

Non-disparaging clauses are common in Gannett buyouts, too, as I found out trying to interview former USA Today reporters. THey said they couldn’t talk because of the agreements they made _ a surprising stance for reporters, I thought.

By: DaleC

DaleC — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:48:37 +0000

They edited what the employees told us for so long, why stop now.

I guess the real test is when somebody does talk and the AJC sues them, a court gets to decide what “disparaging” means.

By: World Wide Winchell

World Wide Winchell — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:40:30 +0000

And one more note on the bureaucratic cluster f*ck that newspaper management has turned themselves into … the youths are getting restless. Very.
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/07/digging_deeperyoung_newspaper.html

By: World Wide Winchell

World Wide Winchell — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:15:57 +0000

And that’s ok. There are plenty of bloggers perfectly capable of scribing what those departing AJC peeps tell us to.

Hell, they flood our Inboxes with those ridiculous Wallace memos, the ones that are quickly becoming parodies of themselves ’cause they are so laden with corporate ya-ya double-speak no one believes a word of, let alone a bitter journalist type. (Think of the scene in Order of The Phoenix where Filtch keeps nailing-up Umbridge’s flood of “memos” to the wall, to the point where they all come crashing down. On her head I think.)

Anyways… back to the point… y’all can stop sending the I Am Wallace Hear Me Roar To Keep MY Job memos. We just pull ‘em off of Romenesko the day they hit YOUR desktops anyway. Besides, seen one, seen ‘em all. Yawn.

Send something more-better next time, k? After all, we’re just here to give the (departing) people what they want – the finger to AJC management. At a time where giving the finger to management could be a very delightful thing to do. It’s not like you’re going to be going back to a newspaper, after all.

Shoot, of one of ‘em had the tiniest of steel ovaries/balls, they’d, of course, give the finger themselves, but being sniveling little creatures of elitist habits, I doubt that’s gonna happen.

No problem. Bloggers are standing by to do your dirty work for you. Builds stamina, if not character, for the road ahead. (The road we’re already WAY further down the line on, BTW. Ahead of you, that is.)

Watch out for all the potholes!

By: Andisheh Nouraee

Andisheh Nouraee — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:21:17 +0000

In accordance with the terms of my employment at Creative Loafing, I feel compelled to tell everyone that this is the best blog post I’ve ever read on any subject ever.

By: Sellout

Sellout — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:44:39 +0000

I think the AJC’s management generally is decent people but I’ve been really frustrated by this whole process. They just hired a whole bunch of people after the last buyout and now they are reducing staff again.

As for the gag order, it does seem odd. But then again, if you’re giving someone a year’s salary and benefits not to work, you can pretty much ask what you want.