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Topic: edit budget slashed
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| WritingEd | Posted – 10/11/2007 10:31:31 PM | show profile I'm going through a major budget slashing at work and am curious about how others have dealt with similar situations. We have a tight ship of 6 editors producing a monthly magazine plus two newsletters with a lot of the content (about 50%) written in-house. One senior-level editor is leaving in a few weeks and there are no plans to replace him. (The last time a senior level editor left, about 6 months ago, she was replaced, but by an entry-level hire--so I feel as if we were already dealt a blow with that cost-saving measure.) In addition we will have less freelance dollars, so there's no way to farm out that person's current work or even to stick with the amount of work we're currently farming out. If something similar has happened to you: Did you continue producing the same quality of work but work more hours to get it done? Did you and/or your department lower the quality standards so that the work could get done quicker? Did you ask freelancers to write shorter stories, with lesser fees, or even to take a pay cut if they wanted to continue writing for you? Did you somehow fight for more budget $$ (and if so what happened?)? Did you leave the company? I love my job. But I also value my health! |
| WritingEd | Posted – 10/11/2007 10:42:41 PM | show profile one other thought Perhaps another option is to find a way to work smarter rather than harder? For instance, by analyzing your productivity and figuring out ways to increase it? I think I'm a pretty productive employee already but I guess this option would be a way to try to work through the situation in the most positive way. |
| mkelly | Posted – 10/12/2007 9:08:15 AM | show profile Find a new job. Seriously-- maybe you can make a smaller budget work, or live with putting out a lower quality product, but in the end you're facing a budget cut either because the company can't raise sufficient revenue or the management doesn't want to spend the necessary money; either way, in the long-term your job security, satisfaction, and compensation will all be headed in the wrong direction. Bail out now for a more lucrative niche, for better managers, or for a different line of work entirely-- but don't waste your time when you know what the last chapter of this saga is going to be. |
| WritingEd | Posted – 10/12/2007 10:28:38 PM | show profile Thanks for the advice, mkelly. It sounds as if you speak from experience on this one. What kills me is that revenues are just fine. They just want to squeeze more and more out of an ever-smaller group of people. Has anyone else dealt with this issue? |
| writesonwater | Posted – 10/14/2007 2:19:07 AM | show profile | email poster value your health more than your job I have seen this done twice in my career (up close, that is.) Once, at a weekly newspaper, the powers that be decided to take it twice weekly without adding much in the way of human resources. That one about killed me. I finally said No. They put someone else in who said he could do it, he bungled badly (being inexperience AND underresourced) and gave it back to me as a weekly. The other incident was even worse -- a regional magazine group who felt their overhead was too high (with me doing much of the writing, editing, photography and even some layout) and that their costs should be LOWER. So, keep adding magazines without adding much in the way of staff -- except for sales staff, of course. (oh, freelancers can do it! pay crap rates, get some sucky freelancers -- plus, Writes, you can still go take the pics, right?? and freelance designers and one thinly-stretched art director. Great.) That wasn't the only irrational concept the publisher possessed unfortunately -- and I told him so when I quit when he criticized me for not working hard enough. Uh, yeah. He had to replace me with three people. In the short run, I worked more hours with both, because I'm a perfectionist and produced incredible results. (At the magazine, the next editor told me "I couldn't believe how much you did all on your own!" He wasn't dazzled so much as bewildered that I'd even try it. But I will say that newspaper job did serious havoc to my health. Give me the chance again and I'd quit cold turkey rather than even try to do it again. I ended up feeling EXTREMELY unappreciated for the many many times I'd saved the day. And by the way, standards at both places went down as soon as I left. Maybe my standards were too high -- but people in the communities still tell me they miss my work, so I don't think so. And the publisher doesn't care --he just wants his big revenues. I have never had much success asking freelancers to accept less money, not when they were paid a pittance in the first place. However, the goofball publisher did think of it. I have fought for more budget money -- lost a couple times, won a couple times. Had a publisher tell me darkly that would mean cutting my pay -- not a hit with me. |
| WritingEd | Posted – 10/14/2007 9:02:25 PM | show profile Wow, what a guy -- telling you more budget money could be yours if you'd take a pay cut! Thanks for sharing, Writes. I can picture myself putting in too much effort to save a sinking ship. At least I'm only wearing an editorial hat (so far at least!). While we pay decently I definitely don't intend to take this out on the freelancers by suggesting lower rates. I've already been through a time with this company when we had to ask freelancers to temporarily take 10 cents less per word, and while their work was still of good quality it was totally demoralizing, I'm sure. |
| mkelly | Posted – 10/15/2007 7:08:29 AM | show profile If you cut the pay of your freelancers, they will apply the same attitude to you that I recommend you apply to your publisher: the long-term model isn't working, or the management is bad, so look elsewhere. Your good freelancers will leave as quickly as possible, if not immediately. That's why good management is so absolutely indispensable-- not because it's a noble business principle unto itself, but because good management is the only way you can find and retain good employees. Any idiot manager can find idiot staff. |
| mkelly | Posted – 10/15/2007 7:08:33 AM | show profile If you cut the pay of your freelancers, they will apply the same attitude to you that I recommend you apply to your publisher: the long-term model isn't working, or the management is bad, so look elsewhere. Your good freelancers will leave as quickly as possible, if not immediately. That's why good management is so absolutely indispensable-- not because it's a noble business principle unto itself, but because good management is the only way you can find and retain good employees. Any idiot manager can find idiot staff. |
| fourfold | Posted – 10/15/2007 7:37:57 AM | show profile Amen to writesonwater for the point about not letting the situation affect your health. WritingEd, I think you'll know when the time to leave comes. I certainly did, at my current job: I was literally having dizzy spells from the stress of being one of two people putting out a full-length (96-page) magazine every other month. (The other person was my boss, who was told by his boss to delegate more!) The publishing company that puts out the magazine is a prestigious one, and if I could have "manned up" and stuck it out, my career would have no doubt been helped. But I was miserable, absolutely f-ing miserable. So I quit. I still have doubt about whether it was the right thing to do. My advice is to develop an "exit strategy." Start saving money, updating your resume, etc. so you don't feel totally stuck. |
| Jerose | Posted – 10/15/2007 11:20:11 AM | show profile Wow, hit the nail right on the head Writesonwater totally summed up what's happening with my company. As the ONLY editor of the publication, I have to fight for my budget and my staff's raises. Every time I go in to pontificate as to why my staff needs a 5% not a 1%, I'm told that our division is not doing well, despite the 40% revenue increase over last year. The big fat sales guy and the publisher get a pretty raise to the tune of 15% and free dinners on the company while the poor joes who spend endless hours writing, editing, and producing the mag are asked to do things cheaper. (We were actually told to use our own cell phones when making long-distance interview calls.) In my last review, which was 4 months overdue, I was told that they could not give me a raise because the cost of postage went up. Sure, I'll continue stay late to work for those fools. Right. Seriously, get out. In my case, my boss knows nothing about the skills of writing and editing. It's an underrated profession since "everyone's taught in elementary school how to write." Ah, everyone does--but try writing WELL. He actually sent out an industry-wide email that read: "Thank you for making our pub the industries best!" |
| writesonwater | Posted – 10/15/2007 12:53:50 PM | show profile | email poster I hear you! I understand the wisdom of having publishers whose strongpoint is business, who can drive the sales. But what I found was that while my publisher could recognize good quality ("I love the book this month!" etc) he didn't understand what went into making it great -- and he didn't get that if you keep putting less straw in the bricks, sooner or later the building will be weaker. His biggest dilemma was that his model was skewed. When he started the company (and I managed the editorial side of that start) he thought he'd do something revolutionary -- make a free regional magazine, widely distributed in the mail, with relatively affordable advertising. He was banking on the hope that production would eventually get less expensive as he added publications and kept his human resources the same. (Not advertising of course -- he could see the wisdom of increasing staff there, because they brought in more cash directly.) I think that if the model many of these stretched-to-breaking-point publications were examined, similar flaws would be found. I know times are tough and mags are going under, and that's too bad -- but it's possible many are run with processes that doom themselves to failure. |
| etiquette_king | Posted – 10/16/2007 11:26:44 AM | show profile It seems as if the shareholders point of view is being neglected here. While slashing your edit budget might pose an immediate pressure upon you, it is likely a welcome windfall for the shareholders. |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 10/16/2007 1:51:00 PM | show profile etiquette king - no shit, Sherlock. But any business that drains its human capital with unrealistic expectations is not a business that will succeed long-term and will be plagued by high turnover. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 10/16/2007 2:44:17 PM | show profile Cautionary tale on greed When in daily newspaper, I had a publisher who bet herself she could reduce the budget by x dollars. That was what she'd been known for at other papers, and she was proud of it. In a small newsroom, she'd wait months to replace a reporter who'd moved on, and she'd pay bottom dollar for new hires. She'd cancel sponsorship of long-held community events, so organizers would take the events to the competition to sponsor. Everytime you went into her office, she had the Excel spreadsheet out, going over the figures and gloating. It was like a compulsion -- and she admitted to me she had OCD tendencies. (Ya THINK?) Tired of working eight days a week I left while my staff got thinner and thinner. Someone cheaper followed me. The shareholdersers may have been delighted when they looked at the money she'd saved, but they would have been wrong. She wreaked havoc at the paper (which, frankly, started to suck) and ad sales went down. She left not soon after she got there, and her policies are still in place and the paper is no longer the powerhouse it used to be in the community. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 10/16/2007 2:46:34 PM | show profile The moral: Keep trying to squeeze blood from a turnip and you will get blisters. To paraphrase a T-shirt, "If the staff ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." Don't cut off your editorial nose to spite your publishing face. |
| slink | Posted – 10/17/2007 9:07:48 AM | show profile Those "big fat sales guys" are the ones who enable you to earn a paycheck in the first place. It's a demanding job, and that's the going rate for them. If you don't keep the salemsman happy then the salesman will move on to another job. As these message boards demonstrate, there are plenty of editors looking for work, and editors are more replicable than salesmen. |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 10/17/2007 10:01:03 AM | show profile Slink, you're talking to the wrong people here. Without the writers and editors, there wouldn't BE anything to sell. |
| etiquette_king | Posted – 10/17/2007 10:32:30 AM | show profile I think Slink should be commended for raising this issue in an unfriendly forum instead of just "preaching to the choir." But, this brings up a second, worthy point: why is there no category on the forums labeled "for shareholders" or "for stakeholders?" |
| writesonwater | Posted – 10/17/2007 10:56:03 AM | show profile stakeholders and editorial types are on completely different floors of the same building. At the mid-size daily I worked at first, sales types basically weren't allowed on the news floor. I don't begrudge salespeople their money. They have to work harder than ever for it these days -- and fewer commissions mean fewer sales which means smaller news budget which means smaller news hole. Most here would recognize that interconnectedness. Just sell the doggone ads already so we can do our job without trying to nickel and dime people to death. |
| noname1234 | Posted – 10/17/2007 11:42:05 AM | show profile what do you mean, "shareholders" and "stakeholders"? Are you talking about people who own stock in a public company (which includes many big media companies like Time Warner, etc. -- that's what comes to mind for me when I head "shareholders") or are you thinking of this word(s) in a different, more general way? |
