Beehive Baltimore opens doors to laid-off Baltimore Sun employees

Attention all who were laid off this week:

You may want to check out Beehive Baltimore's offer. Free access to the 'Hive for the month of May. Great place to network and work on your resume.

Learn more about the offer here: http://beehivebaltimore.org/2009/04/30/laid-off-from-the-sun-youre-welcome-at-the-hive/

Much thanks to Dave Troy, a local Baltimore guy, for opening up the 'Hive to local Baltimore Sun folks affected by sudden job loss.

(P.S. Here's a story in The Baltimore Sun about the 'Hive: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.coworking15feb15,0,294479.story)

Baltimore Sun newsroom layoffs -- Read all about it

* The Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild press release:
http://www.poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13920

* Baltimore Sun story:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.sun30apr30,0,5738376.story

* The Daily Record:
http://www.mddailyrecord.com/article.cfm?id=11400&type=UTTM


* Baltimore Business Journal:
http://baltimore.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2009/04/27/daily36.html


* WYPR:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wypr/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1500107


* Fox45
http://www.foxbaltimore.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wbff_vid_485.shtml

* David Ettlin's blog, "Baltimore Sun Massacre":
http://ettlin.blogspot.com/2009/04/baltimore-sun-massacre.html


* Citypaper:
http://www.citypaper.com/digest.asp?id=17986


* The Biz Blog (Poynter):
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=123&aid=162752


* Baltimore Brew:
http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/?p=2116


* Editor & Publisher
http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/?p=2116


* From Reuters' MediaFile blog:
http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/04/29/tribune-co-papers-hit-where-it-hurts/


* Comments on Twitter.com:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=baltimore+sun+layoff

We Won. We're Losing Pay. Our Attitude May Be Graded

The headline above pretty much summarizes the gist of our latest bulletin today to our members at The Baltimore Sun. We'd like to hear what you think about these items, especially the part about the proposed changes in our performance evaluations. (Scoring for "Attitude" and given "stars"? Hello, fourth grade?)

Baltimore Sun Guild Bulletin, Feb. 18 2009

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business & Legal newspaper union

Also wanted to call your attention to a blog post by ex-Sun v.p. of interactive, Tim Windsor, over at the NiemanJournalismLab blog. Mr. Windsor challenged newspaper unions to come to the table with "real ideas," and cut the posturing. He used a Guild bulletin from the Washington Post unit, which we posted yesterday (see the previous post), to make his point.

What do you think about what Mr. Windsor wrote? (Btw, he also keeps a good, thought-provoking blog, if you haven't seen it yet.)

Is this a shifty union-busting tactic at the Washington Post newsroom?

Check out the report from the Washington Post's Guild unit below. The Post apparently wants to create a "community journalist" position. Adding the word "community" to newspaper positions, we suspect, is going to be the new trend, as newspapers try to create new positions outside of union reach.

We suspect we'll be seeing such tactics at the good ol' Baltimore Sun in the very near future. Stay tuned.

Washington Post and their so-called "Community Journalist" positions

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Press Releases Business & Legal journalist Washington Post

A rant

Here's an essay blasting Tribune and Sam Zell for the cuts at the LA Times. Click the link below.

RANT

"Imagine if you will...."

Despite experimenting now for about a generation, the newspaper industry still hasn't figured out the Internet. Here's a blast from the past. A 1981 TV report on the San Franciso Examiner's effort to published a computerized version of their daily paper:

Pay attention to the kicker. "For the moment, at least...."

Guild Hosts Q&A re: Tribune Bankruptcy

Guild leaders tomorrow (Thursday) will lead a Q&A to update Sun employees on the Tribune bankruptcy proceedings.

We'll have two sessions. Hope you can make one of them.

Session 1: Starts at noon, in the Clarence Mitchell conference room.

Session 2: Starts at 5:30, in the cafeteria.

Bill Salganik, Guild local president, and Bob Paul, Guild attorney, will be on hand to give us updates and answer questions as best they can.