"Involuntary Separation"

Add a Comment

July 19, 12:12 PM

by Brenda Carl, Baltimore Media Examiner

 

 

In a business that uses words as its tool, these are two words you don't want to hear, especially if it describes your position in the company. 

"Involuntary Separatons."

But even as the Baltimore Sun employees anticipated the job cuts announced Friday,  it's surprising to hear the layoffs, the firings, the terminations, the career-ending cuts,  whatever you call them, sugar coated by management.

As if, by using different words to describe the process, the end result would be different.  As if, by calling the "scale-backs"  involuntary it would take the sting away from the people who's paychecks would stop coming in a matter of weeks.

 "We achieved our work force reduction goal with a vast majority of the staff reductions coming from attrition, open positions and voluntary separations," said Judy Berman, the media group's senior vice president of marketing. "A small number of involuntary separations did occur. ... However, we did work to minimize the number of involuntary separations and to ensure that The Sun will continue award-winning coverage and serve readers."

Twenty percent of the newsroom reporters are now gone according to the reports late Friday. That means fewer people checking facts, fewer writers pounding on keyboards, and fewer folks using their words to earn their living.

Newspapers and most forms of media are struggling for survival these days. The writing was on the wall up to 20 years ago as smaller media outlets were consumed by the larger ones, the networks gobbled up the local stations, the community newspapers were eaten up by the larger regional papers, survival of the fittest means bigger is better. 

The actual pages are smaller now, and the staff writing the copy shrinks along with it. The only thing left to do now is wait and wonder how long.... how long the rolls of newsprint will keep rolling in Baltimore. How long the people who call themselves journalists can afford to keep earning a living by writing for a dying industry.  How long until the readers demand a full staff of writiers to cover the Baltimore beats, the police,  City Hall, and the State House.

I'm guessing the only outcry heard from this latest butchering of a once proud paper will be from those poor folks who thought they had invested in a stable career that would take them thru the sunset of their lives. But the Sun has already set on them.

   Subscribe   Feed

Include other special offers from Examiner.com
Terms of Use