Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Loaf
Not a creature was stirring – they’d all been laid off
Well, it almost rhymes. For the handful of you not already bored to tears by the ongoing saga of CL’s turbulent excursion through bankruptcy, I offer more holiday reading. The Chicago Reader reports that several employees at that paper got pink slips the week before Christmas.
CLI has suffered ever since the sale, and its cost-cutting hasn’t spared the Reader: Six more layoffs last Thursday reduced this paper’s editorial staff to 17; it was 38 when the old owners sold Eason the paper.
At the same time, our sister Loaf in Tampa cut some folks as well, including three in editorial, as editor David Warner explains:
The options we face are grim: If we don’t streamline and refocus our newsroom operations, we won’t survive.
Cheered up yet, everybody? The Charlotte Loaf didn’t escape the ax, either; some remaining employees were asked to work fewer hours. And our Washington City Paper has also lost a couple of bodies, as reported in the latest tome by Atlanta Mag’s own Steve Fennessy. In fact, for the first time, Steve – an ex-CLer himself – takes direct aim at company president Ben Eason:
One thing he did not express in our discussions, nor has he in any public way to his own employees, is a sense of shame or even regret in presiding over the dismantling of local institutions. Nor has he acknowledged the human toll his decisions have exacted on his employees, who with every week, it seems, grow fewer in number.
Finally, if you haven’t already had your fill of schadenfreude at our expense, you may also enjoy this essay by longtime Loaf contributor and former editor Cliff Bostock:
The fact is that practically no existing print publications have made a successful transition to digital presence. Almost all publications, regardless of web presence, have suffered huge losses in staff and income.
Anyway, everybody, have a happy holiday!
