Today The Hartford Courant will begin reorganizing its remaining journalists in order “to perform at the level we’ve been performing,” in the words of Publisher Steve Carver.
Yes, and they will end world hunger while they are at it.
How will the Courant keep tabs on Connecticut’s congressional delegation without a reporter in Washington?
How will iTowns keep in touch with local people in Enfield and the Farmington Valley and Greater Hartford now that Loretta Waldman and Nancy Lastrina have been dismissed? (Loretta was already doing half of the beat Rachel Gottleib left behind when she departed for Chicagoland.) How will it report the local news that Kate Farrish and Ann Marie Somma were handling?
Without Mark Pazniokas, how will Chris Keating and Jon Lender keep up with all that Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the legislature do in this difficult year? Will another, less experienced (and less expensive) reporter be assigned to try to fill the gap? If so, what other coverage will be sacrificed? The city’s? A suburban town’s?
How will the copy desk and sports desk function smoothly with so many fewer editors — or handle the workload when people call in sick or go on vacation? Will quality suffer when the remaining staffers attempt to do twice the work?
How many weekend staffers will their be? (That’s a number that’s been declining for years.) And with fewer staffers to work with, how much more stress and burn-out will there be for the remaining team?
Most likely, Courant editors thought most of that through before they made their layoff choices. Unless they are idiots, which most certainly they are not, they knew better than anyone that fewer reporters and photographers means less original news. They grit their teeth and get on with it, covering the things they think most important, passing up the rest. They fill the holes with wire copy, hoping readers won’t notice much, and hoping they don’t miss any big stories that some other news agency finds. If they do, they’ll scramble and try to catch up.
Nobody at the Courant believes that this is performing at previous levels — or anything close to it.
It’s a shame they expect the public to.
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Hi all,
I just wanted to thank Paul for this important forum and support network. After he posted my message last week, I heard from former colleagues from around the country within minutes, including Glen Harris and Mike Remez.
Let’s all keep in touch,
Kate
The top editors have repeatedly handpicked who stays and who goes, I wonder if top newsroom management have ever offered to take a small percentage pay cut, unpaid furlough, or shouldered some other self-sacrifice to save jobs…..
In my opinion, the newsroom for years has been top-heavy with administrators/editors — now more than ever. I suggest the top editors, who protect one another and receive excellent money, accept a pay cut or furlough.
At the least, they should shoulder some reporting duties to help out. Hopefully, they remember how to report and write a news story.”