New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller and Chairman/Publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger are both gearing up to play the Grinch who stole Christmas and lay off a couple dozen staffers. That didn’t keep them from stopping by the paper’s front-page conference room Tuesday night, where the latest round of downsized journalists had gathered for a final goodbye.
Neither addressed the crowd, but instead milled around and made small talk, according to one of the disappeared. The employees, who had accepted buyout packages, left the company by yesterday, many with two years of severance.
The two executives will be making hard choices in the next few weeks, deciding which employees to whack just before Christmas in order to fulfill the corporate edict to lay off 100.
Thanks to a last-minute surge of buyout volunteers before the Dec. 7 deadline, fewer will have to be fired than was feared.
Late yesterday, the Newspaper Guild said that the Times had accepted 74 buyout applications, including 60 from the unionized ranks and another 14 from the non-union staff and management.
“That leaves the possibility of as many as 26 involuntary reductions in staff,” said the Guild in a memo to members yesterday.
The company also said it has accepted 42 buyout applications from the business side of the paper, but they do not count in the newsroom target of 100 cuts.
The next part of the process gets a little touchy. Apparently, the Times must turn over to the union in advance the names of people it intends to fire. The union frequently raises objections on the basis of seniority.
The Guild yesterday said that it had reached an agreement with management “to resolve their dispute over the calculation of newsroom seniority and several related issues through an accelerated arbitration process that will produce a decision by Monday.”
The Guild said Times management has postponed providing the list. That doesn’t mean, however, that the layoffs will be postponed.
Crain drain
It looks like it is jump-ship time at Crain Communications.
Advertising Age Executive Editor Jonah Bloom has resigned to become CEO and editor-in-chief at Breaking News, a digital blog network that publishes Above the Law, DealBreaker, Going Concern and Fashionista.
The news came on the same day Greg David, founder of Crain’s New York Business, exited the company. He had already been booted upstairs and replaced as day-to-day editor by Xana Antunes.
Said David in a mass e-mail yesterday, “As many of you know, I have resigned as editorial director of Crain’s to become the director of the business and economics program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. I have been teaching there for three years and it is an exciting opportunity.”
Abbey Klaasen, the digital editor, will take over the editing job that Bloom has held for the past five years. Breaking Media was founded by Carter Burden, an entrepreneur who is currently managing director of Darkstar Capital Group. Burden (III) is the son of the late Carter Burden, (Jr.), an original co- founder and co-owner of the Village Voice, and local politician and aide to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
Uncovered
For years, the joke about Men’s Health has been that its cover always features some variation on a screaming “Great Abs” or “Cardio Workout” headline.
Now some publishing wags are snickering that the current issue has headlines identical to those on the October 2007 issue, including “Six-Pack Abs!” “Dress for More Sex” and “Eat Better, Think Smarter.”
“Are they running the same articles inside or did they just forget to change the cover lines?” asked one.
Men’s Health Editor-in- Chief David Zinczenko says it wasn’t a mistake, but that the similar headlines only made it onto the newsstand copies. Subscribers got something different.
“It was only newsstand copies, it was not inadvertent, and it was part of overall branding strategies that we wouldn’t share for magazines, books, international editions, mobile applications or anything else,” said Zinczenko.