With the exception of Jim Farrell, who was working, the entire iTowns contingent showed up Tuesday at Black Eyed Sally’s to commemorate the untimely departures of bloggers Loretta Waldman and Nancy Lastrina, copy editors Ted Funsten and Marge Ruschau, and former Manchester Bureau Chief Kate Farrish.
The iTowns production crew mostly: Karen O'Brien, Barb Lafreniere, Mary Willson, Nancy Lastrina, Loretta Waldman, Sandra James, Sandy Csizmar, Melissa Pionzio and Ken Byron
The people sitting over the pulled pork, ribs and cajun chicken were not angry or bitter about losing their jobs, but neither will they be recommending The Hartford Courant for any Employer of the Year Awards. Most of all, amid the small talk, comradarie and exchange of email addresses, there was the irritating sense that this round of layoffs seemed about as arbitrary and inexplicable as it could get. It is natural when you are dismissed to wonder whether it was something you did that put you on the street instead of someone else. And in this case there is no apparent answer.
In the case of iTowns — my last project before pulling up stakes — there has been a lot of wreckage from the Mardi Gras Massacre. Loretta and Nancy are off the team, leaving only three bloggers for six zones, and there is a chance the remaining bloggers will also be converted to some other use. Local news coverage in the suburbs is, after all, virtually non-existant except in a few prime towns like West Hartford, Farmington and Glastonbury. Even Middletown coverage has withered.
It’s amazing how quickly things can fall apart when the ship hits the iceberg. The iTowns project — the paper’s first foray into User Generated Content — was the single largest content initiative in 2007. It was paraded proudly before Tribune’s Chief Innovator Lee Abrams when he visited Hartford, and even though he seemed not to comprehend its significance conceptually or technologically, the project made it off the runway and achieved a stable flying altitude. It broke some ground that should have been broken long ago by actually helping local clubs and organizations get their information into broad circulation. It made blogging an integral part of several journalists’ daily work.
Now of course the iTowns home page — the one where six web host photos ringed a map of the region — is now simply an unattractive amalgam of municipal borders and large blue squares. The bloggers are falling in number. Some of the section’s personality is being lost with its personnel. How it will fare when the latest reporter redeployment is finished is anybody’s guess and, thankfully, no longer my headache. An overdue redesign is reportedly in the works, at least.
The good news is that all the recent casualties are smiling, looking forward, planning their next moves, and getting involved in activities that reaffirm their talents and value.
Here are some more pictures.
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- Lorettta, Marge and Melissa
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- Ted and Barb
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- Kate Farrish and Nancy Lastrina
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Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I didn’t attend only because I was stuck at school. But I want to wish everyone who is “movin’ on” all the best. For me, seeing Loretta, Nancy and Melissa in these photos is especially poignant because it reminds me of those giddy meetings we were having a year ago at this time, when iTowns was launching and Fulvio and Rachel were still in the picture as webhosts. We would gather every Wednesday in the news conference room, learning how to post blog entries and take pics, sharing concerns, wondering how this experiment would play out. We had a lot of laughs and everyone did their best, and I’m sure all involved at least take away a few fond memories.
My own point of view is they weren’t liberated; they were laid off — sent packing. And at home, many of them have probably felt angry and bitter many times, and rightfully so. Some people’s lives have been ruined for the time being, until they can get back on their feet. In the future, perhaps many will look back and say they were indeed liberated. For now, however, many of them are feeling trapped, with few prospects. The layoffs couldn’t have occurred at a worse time (“It’s the economy, stupid”). A better plan might have included furloughs — to save at least some jobs. A more generous severance plan would have helped, too.
Foot-in-mouth time, methinks. You write: “…this round of layoffs seemed about as arbitrary and inexplicable as it could get. It is natural when you are dismissed to wonder whether it was something you did that put you on the street instead of someone else. And in this case there is no apparent answer.” That could all too easily be taken to mean – as you seemed to imply in a previous post, about Paz’s layoff – that the earlier layoffs were more explicable or justified. I trust that neither you nor anyone else really thinks so, and I could think of many ways to show someone who did think so how cruelly wrong he or she is. I also of course hope that no one still at the Courant is taking the fact that they still have their jobs as any indication of professional merit.
Clearly all the layoffs of all the folks in the newsroom have been arbitrary, since they do not fit with any announced, systemic rationale (i.e., the folks with the least time in with the company, or those who got an “unsatisfactory” on their last review, or who have a spouse working at the paper.)
We all know, of course, that there was some kind of rationale, because the names were not drawn out of a hat. The managers looked at the names, considered what they know about each of us, what their needs were, and made a go or stay decision. What I meant to say in my hastily drafted post is that looking at the product of this decision-making process gives us no clue whatever as to any mental calculus that might have taken place to produce it. These people and those past — including some of the more prickly ones — should not take upon themselves any feelings of inadequacy because they were laid off.
Carlos is right when he says those remaining cannot measure themselves against these developments — not even to declare that they have been lucky to still be employed there.
“no clue whatever as to any mental calculus that might have taken place”
Let x denote employee.
Let F denote “friend” and/or “favorite.”
Let D denote “disposable.”
In F(x), the dependent variable x is considered a higher variable of the first order and is integrated into the solution (or what’s thought to be the solution).
In D(x), the dependent variable is discarded.
Note that the slope of F(x) diminishes over time, while the slope of D(x) increases.