AJC to departing employees: Shhhh!
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
This may sound odd for an organization that prides itself on the free flow of ideas, but staffers who are leaving Atlanta Journal-Constitution are being required to sign an agreement that they won’t “disparage” the paper or its management once they leave, according to several AJC employees.
“I was pretty surprised to see that in there,” said one reporter who’s viewed the agreement.
The AJC didn’t care to discuss the stipulation. “As standard practice, we don’t disclose any specifics regarding legal agreements we have with employees,” says spokeswoman Jennifer Morrow.
But one employee said the severance agreement being presented to employees this month bars those who sign it from making “any disparaging or untrue statements about the company,” its subsidiaries or any other employee. The source indicated that the quote was lifted from the actual agreement (I’d love to get my hands on a copy; please e-mail me if you’d like to share one).
An employee who left during last year’s buyout confirmed that similar phrasing was in the severance agreement he signed last year. That employee said the agreement caused some former writers and editors to refrain from discussing newsroom management in media coverage last year, specifically an Atlanta Magazine profile of Editor Julia Wallace by former CL writer Steve Fennessy.
