Head for the Bunker

Whew. Another tough day in the Tribune family.

The LA Times broke the news to its newsroom that 150 people will begin getting forced out today; the bleeding will continue through the end of August. I read about it at TellZell.com. The only thing I wasn't clear on, from Russ Stanton's memo, is why they get to roll out their drastic cuts over the next 45 days, while ours are getting done quicker than you can say: "When will The Sun unify its Web operations with its newsroom, like the Washington Post is doing?"

Hello... Is this mike on? Anyone. Hello...?

Moving on....David Hiller, the LAT publisher resigned today, too (see LAT story.) Or did he? LAObserved has his "resignation" memo, where he sounds resigned, but doesn't seem terribly thrilled about resigning. He sounds like a real gentleman, but honestly, so many top people have come and gone at the LAT lately that I feel the urge to craft a charticle to keep track of all the shuffles.

By the way, LAObserved has been doing a kick-butt job of informing the public and the journalism world about all the fast-and-furious changes hitting our big corner of the journalism world (check out Kevin Roderick's blog). Should Tribune newsrooms be dedicating far more coverage to this massive shift in our company's direction lately? I bet a lot of Trib employees are checking out LAObserved a couple times a day, right? Why aren't we covering ourselves to death instead of holding off-the-record meetings, tying the hands of our reporters from writing about them, and watching other media outlets scoop our own news! It doesn't make sense! Will people read more stories about the shrinkage of newspapers if we offer them compelling coverage of it? Would it be ironic if our circulation/readership actually rose if we did a superior job of covering the struggles of newspapers? This is all so meta. I can't think about this anymore 'cuz it hurts my head, so on to the next topical news item....

Which is the resignation of the Chicago Tribune's top editor, Ann Marie Lipinski. (See the Trib article.) Wow... as I write this, I'm having trouble thinking about the last time there was such big news coming out of Tribune, at least in my eight years at The Sun.

Anyway, though I may sound crotchety, I am so because I love my job and the people I do it with -- and I, like many of you, feel almost powerless in stemming the tide of what is hitting us.

But if you're are leaving the Sun, or the LAT, or Chicago or other Trib papers, there's a good chance you'll be leaving journalism for good. And I hope you're prepared for that reality or that decision, if it is yours to make. (TellZell just posted a good breakdown on job cuts hitting various Trib papers. It's no eye-popping charticle, but it gets the job done. Thanks, R.)

As I talk to people who left journalism years ago for other industries, many of them recount their times at newspapers as the best years of their lives. It is like that with me. It is like that with many people I work with at the Sun.

So, when we fight and question and express our anger, Trib management, it is not because we are trying to be wise-asses. It is because we love what we do. We fight because we feel someone is robbing us of not just a career, a future and a paycheck, but something that is dear to our hearts, something that keeps us getting out of bed in the morning. What type of people would we be if we didn't fight for the things we love?

UPDATE: I forgot to answer my own rhetorical question, so here goes: If we didn't fight, we'd be wussies. That's right. Wussies.