• Home
  • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
  • Contact

JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Sui generis; showing off; and other journalistic highs and lows
If this story doesn’t make any sense, it’s because… »

Hire ’em young and get ’em right down to the dirty work

April 27, 2018 by jimmycsays

Let me show you how The Star’s owner, McClatchy Co., conducts business in these days of newsroom salary contraction and staff reductions.

Over the last decade or so, since the Internet began killing newspapers, McClatchy has fixed on a cost- and newsroom-cutting formula. It generally revolves around hiring relatively young and inexperienced editors; putting them in big jobs that pay significantly less than what comparable editors were making a generation ago; then ordering them to preside over layoffs.

A perfect example of the strategy played out in northern California this week.

A year ago, 36-year-old Lauren Gustus was executive editor at the Fort Collins Coloradoan — owned by Gannett, another ball-busting chain — with an average Monday-Saturday circulation of about 16,800.

In other words, it’s a piddly paper.

Lauren Gustus

Always on the lookout for young, fresh meat, McClatchy snatched up Gustus last June and made her vice president and executive editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. And just like that it was…Welcome to the big time, baby!

With average weekday circulation of 75,000, the Star-Telegram is one of McClatchy’s largest papers.

Meanwhile, financial problems were brewing at McClatchy’s flagship paper, the Sacramento Bee — also known as the SacBee — and McClatchy executives needed somebody to come in and take out some bodies.

Who better than young Gustus? In February, then, Gustus, with all of eight months’ experience at a major metropolitan paper, was summoned to McClatchy headquarters in Sacramento and put in charge of all five of McClatchy’s California papers.

In addition to the SacBee, the jewels in her crown included the Fresno Bee, the Modesto Bee, The Merced Sun-Star and The Tribune in San Luis Obisbo.

The combined, average weekday circulation of those papers — including digital subscriptions — is about 226,000.

So, in less than a year’s time, Gustus had gone from overseeing a less-than-20,000-circ paper to five papers with more than a quarter of a million daily subscribers.

Hey, Lauren, welcome to the big, big, BIG time!

But no sooner had the hangover from the welcome party subsided than Gustus found a big, fresh turd on her plate…And so this week, under marching orders from HQ, Gustus announced the SacBee had laid off 23 employees — 15 editorial staff members (I read 14 elsewhere) and eight production people.

The casualties included business writer Mark Glover, a 34-year veteran of the paper, and Stephen Magagnini, a 32-year veteran who covered ethnic affairs, race relations and immigration.

In a letter announcing the layoffs, Gustus “told her colleagues the layoffs were part of a company restructuring seeking to foster greater collaboration between editorial staffers at different company papers.”

…What? Lay off people to “foster greater collaboration”? 

Insane.

The letter went on to say several new people would be hired “with specific expertise to fill critical roles.”

Translation: Just as at The Star and other McClatchy papers, young reporters champing at the bit to break into the business would be hired to replace senior, high-paid employees with irreplaceable institutional knowledge.

**

I wonder how Ms. Gustus feels this weekend…Dirty, used? Or that she had shown McClatchy executives she was up to the lofty status they had bestowed on her?

Maybe she feels a little of both.

Either way…welcome, Lauren, to the nasty business of journalism at failing, publicly owned newspaper chains.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized |

  • Pages

    • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
    • Contact
  • Archives

    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 562 other subscribers

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC
    • Join 562 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: