| Following the earlier announcement of yesterday's buyout plan at the eight Booth Newspapers is today's laying off of a currently undisclosed number of employees at the Journal Register Company's Michigan properties. No links are currently available, but I know that at least two jobs -- an editor and a reporter -- were lost at the local newspaper, the Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun. In addition, this probably meant cuts at JRC's other Michigan dailies -- the Oakland Press, the Macomb Daily, and the Royal Oak Tribune. I've said it before, I'll say it again ... a number of these cuts don't just represent savings in terms of wage and benefits savings for these media chains, but the loss of insitutional knowledge that helps shape sound reporting. The editor at the Morning Sun who was laid off, for instance, had been with the paper since the early 90s. As the paper continues to try to fulfill its function in the community of informing people of what's going on, it does so without his particular width and breadth of experience. |
