I am certain there will be more than a couple “clarifications” regarding this morning’s announcement on voluntary buyouts..
Among the first: Star Tribune Guild reps say sports writer Steve Aschburner will stay on past Friday until the end of the current Timberwolves season. (As one crank has already posted on this blog’s “comments” section, “Hasn’t the Timberwolves season already ended?”)
Not to diminish the contributions of anyone else among this morning’s 24 but Aschburner will be loss to local sports fans/readers.
Aschburner is as good and entertaining to read as the Wolves are rotten.
Apparently three others among the 24 will also stay on past Friday for one reason or another.
The Guild does not yet have answer to whether Aschburner and the others who linger will be granted the two extra “grace weeks” tossed to those who leave Friday. The more immediate question to those remaining in the newsroom is, “Come next Monday, who is going to do the work The Departed have been doing?” As of this morning that mildly relevant question had not been answered.
Also, Strib Guild reps say that there are 375 Guild members in the newsroom PRIOR to this Friday’s departure of the 24, and that, to their best reckoning, there have been 25 other positions left unfilled over the past couple years, for a total of nearly 50.
What continues to eat at the nerves of those who remain is the absolute vacuum of information coming from new owners, Avista Capital Partners, or their new front man, (former Pioneer Press) publisher, Par Ridder. Guild reps met with middle-upper managers Scott Gillespie and Bob Schafer approximately a month ago and were politely told … we don’t have anything to tell you.
Among questions the paper’s professional information hunter/gatherers would like answered are these: Is another 24 fewer employees enough? And if so, for how long? Or should we immediately begin assuming that Avista needs an even smaller workforce to meet its ‘financial goals? If further down-sizing is the plan, does anyone in management have even a glimmer of an idea how to restructure the remaining staff to insure coverage of the most vital beats? What is Avista/Ridder’s idea of “vital”? Does the posting for D.C. bureau replacements for Rob Hotakainen and Kevin Diaz … at significantly lower rates of pay … offer a hint of Avista’s attitudes toward other “vital” beats?
Somebody owes these otherwise loyal … adults … better explanations than they are getting.
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