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Topic: Black Thursday
| Author | Message |
| Deadliner | Posted – 1/18/2007 12:15:45 PM | show profile | email poster Is there anyone here from Time Inc.? How deep did the cuts go today. As bad as Keith Kelley said? Who did they layoff and which magazines were most effected? Did they layoff any management or high-paid journos? |
| slink | Posted – 1/18/2007 12:30:37 PM | show profile This is very exciting. |
| Deadliner | Posted – 1/18/2007 12:56:49 PM | show profile I don't find it exciting at all. I'm concerned. |
| newyorker | Posted – 1/18/2007 1:59:33 PM | show profile What about those magazines that were up for sale? (ie Time 4 Media and Parenting Group). |
| mailbag | Posted – 1/18/2007 2:53:36 PM | show profile | email poster Depeest sympathy for all of you guys who get the axe. Unless you were the $1 billion ceo type, its going to be tough competing against each other for the few jobs available. |
| spring2007 | Posted – 1/18/2007 3:02:01 PM | show profile there are some names posted at gawker.com. |
| ellen11 | Posted – 1/18/2007 3:44:08 PM | show profile What could possibly be exciting about people getting fired? It's scary, depressing and generally hideous. |
| fareenuf | Posted – 1/18/2007 4:24:48 PM | show profile slink's reply slink just likes to stir the pot...i'd ignore this poster. |
| soonerscribe | Posted – 1/18/2007 4:40:48 PM | show profile | email poster First post, but I've lurked for some time. I'm a People stringer in the (former) Austin bureau. Haven't received anything other than the memo all stringers received. I have no idea what it means, whether all the stringers will be retained or just a select few. At any rate I figure it's time to start looking for a day job. Good freelance gigs in the Texas/Oklahoma area are few, far between and poorly paid... |
| gimmemags | Posted – 1/18/2007 5:12:55 PM | show profile Does anyone know if Essence was affected? |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 1/18/2007 5:41:04 PM | show profile If 200 journalists are tumbling at once onto the NYC-area market -- and anyone can count the number of jobs available here on MB daily (yes, you can of course find or network your own) -- I wonder how many of them will 1) leave NYC (and go where?) and/or 2) leave journalism 3) into what field(s)? 4) freelance 4) teach or...? I doubt anyone will or can statistically track this large exodus, and maybe no one will feel like discussing what happens to them next, but it could offer some hard data points on what fired journalists do, and how long it takes them to find re-employment in the field or elsewhere. This is absolutely not meant to show a lack of compassion for anyone being fired but a larger desire to see or understand the bigger labor picture from the employees' side. The bosses and their firms' financial woes will always make headlines, but fellow journalists/employees and their paths interest me as much if not more. |
| j.hodl | Posted – 1/18/2007 6:34:07 PM | show profile I know where some journalists fired from big publications are going. At two trade publications to which I contribute, young new editors are former writers for the Houston Chronicle and Bloomington Pantagraph. Now if they can only create online reporting jobs that pay living wages... |
| ConfidentDesigner | Posted – 1/18/2007 6:34:56 PM | show profile SKI and Skiing How about SKI and Skiing magazines in Boulder? |
| Uber Nerd | Posted – 1/18/2007 9:06:29 PM | show profile | email poster Caitlinkelly's reply You raise excellent questions. I am also curious to see how this affects online journalism, and the development of online gatekeepers. My sincerest condolences to those who have lost their jobs. Hang in there. |
| noname1234 | Posted – 1/18/2007 9:51:34 PM | show profile mailbag wrote: "Unless you were the $1 billion ceo type, its going to be tough competing against each other for the few jobs available." Mailbag, why on earth would you direct a comment like this to people who have just lost their jobs? You've shared your own unfortunate story many times here but there's no need to try to put your frustration onto others who've just had a rough experience. I would like to say to those folks: Hang in there! Many of us here have lost jobs at various points and have bounced back. You can definitely do it too. |
| noname1234 | Posted – 1/18/2007 10:02:39 PM | show profile caitlin wrote: "If 200 journalists are tumbling at once onto the NYC-area market..." From what I can tell that's not accurate. According to the MB homepage, "117 business side; 172 editorial" were terminated. Many of these people are not in NYC (they're in satellite bureaus) and of the edit employees who are, they're not all journalists (some might be art folks, copy editors, production people, etc.) who perhaps can segue smoothly into other industries if they choose to. |
| noname1234 | Posted – 1/18/2007 10:04:04 PM | show profile caitlin wrote: "If 200 journalists are tumbling at once onto the NYC-area market..." From what I can tell that's not accurate. According to the MB homepage, "117 business side; 172 editorial" were terminated. Many of these people are not in NYC (they're in satellite bureaus) and of the edit employees who are, they're not all journalists (some might be art folks, copy editors, production people, etc.) who perhaps can segue smoothly into other industries if they choose to. |
| steady1 | Posted – 1/19/2007 1:09:49 AM | show profile Thank you for your condolences. I am one of the folks affected. It is devastating. Today I saw people with decades of service be shown the door. We are all in shock. No one knows what's next. The job market is terrible, especially for those of us in mid-career. I went to Time because I was looking for stability. There goes that one! The news reports I've read have been very accurate. |
| Marie | Posted – 1/19/2007 1:31:21 AM | show profile Steady--I actually know who you are, and I know you have the skills to land tons of freelance work, or even another staff job if you want it. Great copy editors ALWAYS have work, which is what I've always said. I know people affected by these cuts, and I am devastated. But I know most of you will be fine, with freelance work, which will eventually lead to another staff job, should you want it. Best of luck. |
| mailbag | Posted – 1/19/2007 9:28:40 AM | show profile | email poster noname "noname1234 -- Mailbag, why on earth would you direct a comment like this to people who have just lost their jobs? You've shared your own unfortunate story many times here but there's no need to try to put your frustration onto others who've just had a rough experience." I think my comment was taken out of context noname... it is the workerbees who were laid off (as usual) whereas the CEOs should have gotten the axe first. That is the point. Layoff the CEO making $1 billion, and think of all the salaries of actual workers have been saved. CEOs don't actually keep a company going contrary to popular opinion... it is the workers. Go unionization. :-) |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 1/19/2007 9:50:32 AM | show profile noname, you make a good point....But my question remains the same, and especially for mid-career people like steady1 who do face a crowded and less-hospitable marketplace. As one of them, I'd selfishly like to know where they go/land and at what speed and with what success. Seems a perfect place for an interested journalism prof to do some actual real-time research of use to the rest of us, many of whom have felt the axe and multiple times. Is the rebound cycle back to a full-time spot any faster, and by how much, for people willing to move or work for 10-20-50% less than before? Data, anyone? I know an editor who used to make $95,000 at a big consumer book -- now earning $55,000 at a regional paper, but living in the same costly place. And she is in her late 40s. Mailbag and his woes is not unique. Younger employees getting fired, (and this may not be a fair assumption) might be more able or willing to uproot and try a new city, state or even a new industry. Someone who's assumed the responsibilities of family and/or a mortgage, or much more, has family commitments and ties, and a high overhead that NYS's maximum monthly $1620 in unemployment benefits (taxable) is unlikely to cover. Is anyone else here old enough to remember -- as when I came to NYC in 1989 -- that ads in the New York Times Sunday paper under "editorial" used to fill two entire pages? (And, no, I don't see as many on MB or job boards as a simple migration of content.) There were three last week, in the putative center of American publishing. I wish every one going through this the best of luck. There is, of course, freelance work out there for the energetic and skilled. |
| mailbag | Posted – 1/19/2007 10:04:32 AM | show profile | email poster "ck - Is anyone else here old enough to remember -- as when I came to NYC in 1989 -- that ads in the New York Times Sunday paper under "editorial" used to fill two entire pages? (And, no, I don't see as many on MB or job boards as a simple migration of content.) There were three last week, in the putative center of American publishing." Of course... not only that, but newspapers verified journalism classifieds at that time as legit. Now (in our dumbed-down era) anyone can post a job for any reason on MB, journalismjobs.com, careerbuilder, monster, etc... no verification, just your credit card and address. Haven't checked in a while because I do have a job, but at one point I knew monster in particular was the greatest offender for 'editorial' jobs... 90% or more were bogus. Make a cool $mil writing from home for our marketing company... as the description went. I still get spam e-mails from companies I applied to in 2004. Younger laid off workers have more flexibility too, can go back to school without having lost much of their adult life, change careers and take more risk. The risk factor is now so great due to the high cost of living, the more senior one is in age yes, we can only afford that 50% cut in pay just to keep going while we might try to work on something better. Old age also seems to speed up time.. where did '06 go? Got me - it was gone in a second. '07 is half over. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 1/19/2007 11:22:25 AM | show profile | email poster I noticed the Dallas Morning News just advertised for a couple copy editors, maybe they and other papers are hoping to absorb some of this talent. Of course, the Dallas Morning News just laid off 100 newsroom employees themselves == some were given buyouts -- so like many places, the market's not THAT secure. My bro in law was laid off from a trade pub in December, and by Jan., already had another job at another trade pub -- but with a 20 percent pay cut and a long commute. He still feels lucky, to be sure. I have noticed one large paper I freelance for with a lot more named popping up as freelancers, which is diluting the amount of work available. In this case, it's at least in part from a glut of freelancers caused by the layoffs it incurred the month before. Here is another reason to care about layoffs at TIME and the DMN and other biggies. What's that John Donne wrote, "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls -- it tolls for thee"? We're all interconnected. Good luck to those who got laid off. Keep your chin up. |
| newyorker | Posted – 1/19/2007 11:47:51 AM | show profile Reasoning Part of the reasons for the large amount of cuts is that Time Inc. wants to move towards single reporter/writer reporter (in other words, one byline per article) plus self copy-editing. This is fine and dandy for lifestyle magazines, but for a hard news mag like Time, wouldn't a move like this potentially hurt the quality of reporting? So many of their stories require multiple reporters around the world.... Curious about input on this... |
| veteranjournalist | Posted – 1/19/2007 12:19:11 PM | show profile Stringers will pick up a lot of the workload I know several current and former employees at Time Inc., and years before Black Thursday happened, there was a lot of talk that Time Inc. would eventually dismantle the system of having a team of people working on the same story, and streamline the system so that more articles would be reported and written, and sometimes edited, by the same person. It's really unfortunate that all these layoffs had to happen, but it seems like Time Inc. will just have stringers pick up a lot of the workload that the laid-off full-time editorial staffers used to do. It's the same work that needs to be done, but Time Inc. doesn't give stringers any full-time employee benefits. I know several people who've been stringers for Time Inc. and many of them get workloads that are equivalent to 40 hours a week, sometimes more, but they don't get the benefits of being a full-time employee. And I hate to say it, but some of the stringers work harder than some of the full-time employees who got lazy because they felt secure in their jobs. Now some of those full-time employees have been laid off. In this day and age, no one should feel 100% secure in their jobs. |
