Staff Overboard!
I quit the The Salt Lake Tribune last December after nine years of full-time employment as a news reporter, then sports editor, then metro columnist. Naturally, I still hear tidbits of gossip through the local media grapevine. And now that I edit the city’s best alternative newspaper, gossip from my former colleagues flows to me like spring runoff from the Wasatch Mountains.
In the past month, editorial staffers have been leaving the Trib in greater numbers than anyone can remember. In the month of May alone, business writers Carrie Hamilton and Linda Fantin tendered their resignations. Set to leave the paper as well are Michael Westley, a police and justice reporter; Michael Yount, editor of In Utah This Week, the newspaper’s cynical version of an alternative weekly; and Nicole Stricker, an education reporter.
All have given various and fascinating reasons for jumping ship. Fantin is joining her partner, Phil Miller, who quit the Trib’s NBA beat this spring and took a job at the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota to cover the Twins and major league baseball. Westley has decided to devote full time to a side business he’s built brokering used cars. Yount, a talented graphic designer who has been badly miscast at In Utah, says he will be leaving to be a full-time dad to a toddler and a new baby due in October. Stricker is returning to Idaho Falls to get married, but will likely leave newspaper work altogether.
Then, the following e-mail landed in my in box on June 1. Actually, I got four copies of it from staffers who asked not to be identified. I tell you, it isn’t just leaks coming out of the Gateway 7th floor office tower. It’s a regular opening of the floodgates.
The resignation notice is from Ryan Galbraith, a longtime staff photographer who did not make his decision lightly. He gave up medical benefits for his young family and has told co-workers he’ll try to build up a freelancing business. It’s almost unheard of for a photographer to leave a newspaper job like this one. When you read Ryan’s e-mail, you might understand the gravity of the situation many people are living at Utah’s largest daily paper.
Colleagues,
I’ve worked for the tribune half my life (I’m 35 years-old and 17.5
years at the paper) and the newspaper is no longer working for me.
So, I’m moving on to a life that pays me what I’m worth and provides
respect. It’s no longer worth my time to work for the meager paycheck
I get from the trib, and a measly 3% raise “if there’s improvement
before the next review” is also not worth my time.
Years ago the positive morale, christmas bonuses, great holiday
parties, amazing benefits and camaraderie compensated for the lousy
pay, but now, after half my life, I’m simply a number to the trib.
Today marks a new beginning for me as I move on.
I wish you all the best luck in your future.
Sincerely,
Ryan Galbraith
A former Trib colleague has been keeping track of the resignations and terminations since Media News, under the leadership of Dean Singleton, bought the newspaper and replaced former editor Jay Shelledy with Nancy Conway in 2003. More than 80 people, full- and part-time, have jumped ship.
Managers argue with those numbers. But I’ve seen the list, and I knew the people. All of them. Hell, it’s probably more than 80.
The paper is becoming increasingly “Singletonized,” which in this industry means cutting drastically on compensation and raises, while requiring more time on the job (e.g. contributing to blogs and zoned neighborhood editions without extra pay or comp time) increasing insurance premiums and/or cutting benefits. Ryan’s disgust at a 3 percent raise is typical of many employees at mid-career there. Actually, under the Conway regime, 3 percent is generous. Two and 2 1/2 percent annual raises (if they come at all) are more typical — not even equal to a cost of living increase.
It took a couple of years for the Singleton model to take hold in Salt Lake City. His modus operandi (I watched him gut daily papers in Dallas and Houston in the ’90s) is to cut staff as deeply as possible while defending his penny pinching as “the industry standard.”
And here is where it leads: To a newspaper that will keep losing its best and most loyal employees, who take with them institutional knowledge of Utah’s political, cultural and business institutions and yes, its important and unique nuances.
It’s scarcely a fun place to work anymore, staffers have told me. And in the newspaper biz — known for long hours and low wages — if it isn’t at least a little about fun, why bother?
June 7th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
The same thing is happening at our local paper, The Ventura County Star. I have a friend who is a reporter and he tells me the “inside” scoop also and it sad and he is disgusted but he is about 55 and you know what that means now days.
The worst case of Journalistic Destruction, however, is happening in the Santa Barbara News Press. It is two fold, saving money and controlling the news. You can do a Google search to find the alternative web sites describing that mess. (Google is not a verb — yet)
You were brave to leave the SLT when and how you did and you should be proud of the exodus you started.
June 7th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
While I sympathize over the current “state” of the Tribune, your entry is pretty much a bunch of whining sentences. I mean, welcome to the business world. People in all types of jobs in all types of companies have been dealing with this same stuff for years. Since Singleton bought the Tribune, the paper’s quality level has been uneven at best. I would leave too. Still, what’s taking place at the Tribune is not much different than what occurs everywhere else. If something no longer works for you, you leave. End of story. Meanwhile, I doubt the Tribune has lost many readers. I know I still read the paper every day. I don’t like it, but I still read it. The alternative is the Deseret Morning News, and who wants to read that?
June 8th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Larry,
The situation in Santa Barbara is beyond belief. An owner who is mean, vindictive and loves recreational lawsuits. Wow. She must have studied every nuance of Hearst`s career, yellow journalism all the way. Winners?..lawyers and the feral pigs on the Islands.
Hate to see any decline in the Trib…a beacon of light in the Mormon gloom. Some of the Bagley cartoons are political equivalents to the `Far Side`.
On a more edifying note, `Big Love` returns Monday pm. Shakespeare it is not but I enjoyed some of the vignettes, like Chloe Sevigny arguing theology with `Mo` missionaries.
June 8th, 2007 at 8:39 am
Holly, since you were once sports editor (who knew?), maybe you can tell me why Pat Kinahan left the Trib, and where he’s ending up. All I get from other sources is ‘left to pursue other opportunities’.
As for me, I like reading both newspapers, online–don’t subscribe to either. I like the online layout of the DNews better, the Trib’s all jumbled up, but I like seeing two approaches to news items. My only complaint about the Trib is that sometimes it tries too hard to be the ‘bad boy’, like the article a couple years ago that helpfully told us where to go in surrounding states to get prostitutes. Now that’s community service!
June 8th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Oh well, if you can’t whine on your own blog, why even have one!
Seriously, to quote Jean Powers-Mullen, my 80-year-old mother who knows something about the work world and the life of hard knocks: “Just because everyone else does it, that doesn’t make it right.”
(This bit of wisdom can be applied to everything from corporate downsizing and the inhumane work place to getting drunk at high school keg parties.)
No question, the newspaper industry is really under siege these days. On-line alternatives are pretty much eating the trad media alive. Vconrad is right–you don’t like something you can leave. But something that springs from my liberal bone marrow pushes me to try to work out a better situation before I “cut and run” (I knew I’d find a good use for G.W. Bush’s quote sometime).
I’m no technophobe and I understand the demands of changing and keeping up in the work world. But it doesn’t have to be a sweat shop, and there are plenty of corporate bosses who realize that. Read “Let My People Go Surfing” by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, for a shot in the arm about running a humane business, where healthy profits can be made and employees can feel dignified in the process.
June 8th, 2007 at 10:01 am
As a former intern and semi-employee of the Tribune, I have seen penny pinching tactics at their finest.
1. Fill Zoned Editions with content from cheap labor: wannabe journalists with no resume, college and high school students. Pay them $15 to $20 per article. Add $5 for pictures. When they don’t come through, have reporters contribute in addition to their regular tasks. Fill each Zoned edition with plenty of classified ads.
2. Keep interns for as long as you can without granting pay raises or benefits. They are desperate for the experience. Make them earn their keep (unless they are a minority).
3. Hire new reporters as “contract employees.” That way, you don’t have to pay them benefits or market-level salaries.
4. Skimp on coverage and combine beats. One person can easily cover both Davis and Southern Utah counties…right?
I liked journalism, I liked working for the Tribune, but these policies aren’t the best morale boosters. And they encourage people like Michael Westley and me to try and make ends meet with businesses on the side (mine was an unintended conflict of interest that got me fired).
I think the Trib is reaping what its bosses have sown.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
-T.Peterson
June 8th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Sorry. I filed this one under another blog entry. This is where it belongs:
-0-
fumibill Says:
June 8th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Holly,
Yes, I’ve been following things-Tribune since I left AP three years ago after 35 years, including 23 as bureau chief in Salt Lake City. Much of what is happening at the Tribune also has befallen my former colleagues in the wire service, locally, nationally and internationally. There no longer exists a Utah/Idaho bureau chief for AP. That person is now headquartered in Denver (Singleton’s base) and has responsibility for three other states aside from Colorado - Wyoming, Montana and Utah. AP hasn’t replaced a news clerk in the Salt Lake bureau, nor its administrative assistant. I understand the staff reporters and a photographer are way overworked and, of course, under compensated.
I’m told there is widespread discontent throughout AP. During my career - which I loved with an overwhelming passion - the wire service looked upon itself as “family.” President and CEO Lou Boccardi often referred to his family and was terribly proud of the work AP staffers did, day in and day out.
That’s no longer the case and it saddens me no end.
Incidentally, Singleton now is chairman of Board of Directors of The Associated Press!
Finally, I’ve found a blog that appeals to me. Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts, wisdom, family tales, and your love for good journalism. I’m 66 now and, thanks to you and your followers here, I feel inspired again!
Bill Beecham
June 10th, 2007 at 9:48 am
You could replace the words “editor” and “reporter” with “teacher” and you would be describing the deteriorating state of education for the last decade or more, except that a raise of 2 or 2 1/2 percent in my district would be considered generous. Certainly, we have ever kept up with the cost of living.
It seems to me that the citizens of the US are rapidly moving into Depression-era living with more and more out of work, “necessities” from gasoline to milk becoming more expensive and hopelessness on the rise. The only difference is that the people at the top haven’t been jumping off buildings, probably because their greed is the biggest contributor to our problems. They certainly seem to be taking care of themselves.
I live in Patagonia country (they are about 25 minutes away) and their reputation locally is just as good as it is internationally. I’ve also been impressed with what I read about Costco, although as stockholders complain that they aren’t making enough on their investment (hello? didn’t you research what you were buying into?), Costco seems to be drinking the corporate kool aid, too.
Our democratic republic is evolving into a corporate oligarchy which includes those responsible for counting the votes. Frightening to me in the extreme.
June 10th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Holly: my comment about whining was intended as a “welcome to the club” type of observation. While you are correct in pointing out that there are some companies out there trying to do the right thing with their workers, most large companies only keep their sights on the bottom line. Thus, workers pay more for less health care, promotions and merit increases are pitifully small, the work environment is now all work with more expected for less pay, and the discrepancy between the pay of executives and the pay of the average worker is so great that neither side can understand the other. I don’t know if you’re a fan of Bill Moyer’s Journal, but his show Friday night centered around these same concerns within the airline industry. Greed in America seems to have reached new heights and that is something we should all worry about.