Curious about how our fine paper would frame the layoffs, I came across this article on their website’s front page:
Cin Weekly becomes Metromix
Wow. No mention of the layoffs, just a “rebranding.” Never mind the fact that it’s much, much more than that, and that this article is utterly pregnant with the pain of 100 people. People with families, bills, and needs.
I don’t know what I expected, to be completely honest, but this article seems a bit disingenuous. That is all.
UPDATE: Margaret Buchanan, President and publisher of the Enquirer, wrote a piece that appeared on today’s front page outlining exactly what happened with #BlackWednesday and #BlackThursday. The first paragraph briefly outlines the cuts that were made, 101 in all.
The rest of the story seems to be trepidatious back-patting and non-confident statements about their reach:
“[The Cincinnati Enquirer] has survived 19 economic downturns, including the Great Depression. As the local economy recovers, we’ll be around to cover this story, too.”
The difference, of course, is that in 1929, newspapers were at the center of news and news delivery. There just wasn’t anything else, other than radio, which pulled their news from newspapers. Newspapers have struggled to come up with an answer to the way that the Internet delivers news and how people are interacting with it.
“We are evolving. [...] No other local media company is responding to the changing information and marketing landscape as we are.”
It’s entirely possible that the other local media companies ’round these parts are helping to define the information and marketing landscape, and therefore don’t have much to change. Without much detail to go on, I can’t really say I completely understand what’s being referred to here.
Above, I noted that the Enquirer’s initial response to the layoffs was disingenuous. I don’t necessarily think that’s the case anymore, after reading Buchanan’s piece. Now, it just kind of seems like they don’t have any real long-term plan for the future. These layoffs appear to be a Band-aid on an air-sucking chest wound. I sincerely hope that’s not the case.
I wrote a book. You can download it for free at http://www.jasonmcglone.com. You can reach me at editor@thecincinnatiman.com. 
Loading ...
Just think, there’s a pool of angry talent walking the streets now, looking for somewhere to go.
Unfortunately, we can’t pay them.
YET
I like the comment on the Enquirer site this morning, observing that the ENQ deleted the story that ran yesterday, relaunching it today as new. Yesterday’s reader comments ranged from insightful to furious — check them out here: http://tinyurl.com/klsun7
Why is it that newspaper people seem to act with absolute shock that they’d be laid off? News flash: people are getting laid off all over this country, and it’s a course of business to lay people off. I’ve been laid off twice in my career now – it’s as normal as a pay raise, sadly.
My guess is that it’s less shock than it is outrage. Newspapers were the only game in town for a long, long time and simply didn’t bother to learn how to keep up. As a result, the big paper overlords (i.e., Gannett and Scripps) are more or less at their knees. Now, I don’t know how direct this result is, per se, but it definitely looms. The more our paper cuts things away to “streamline,” the sooner they’re going to just cut everything away and disappear. Or become completely irrelevant. I’m not certain which is worse.