Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor of the Winston-Salem Journal, writes today about the staff cuts the paper made last Friday.  They cut their film reviewer, NFL beat reporter, outdoors columnist and two scanning technicians (people who prepared photos for publication).  He does a good job of explaining why the cuts were made and I think the tone of his post reflects the atmosphere that people in the newspaper business are working in these days.

Yesterday I heard from someone who was upset with the cuts, thought they were "gutless" and wondered why Ken hadn’t written about them.  I don’t know Ken personally, although we’ve exchanged email and I’ve read his blog from the beginning, but I can tell you that I don’t think he made the decision lightly.  I’ve yet to meet the person who liked laying off their employees and I’m willing to bet he lost a lot of sleep over it.

Unfortunately I think the Journal’s story is representative of many more stories we’ll be hearing soon from newspapers across the country.  The bloodletting in this industry is just beginning for managers in newsrooms of papers large and small, and I just hope they figure out how to "re-purpose" their people into new media where all the ad revenue is going before they have to "un-purpose" them completely.

I’ve only had to let someone go twice in my life; once because the business was tanking and once for cause.  The first instance still haunts me to this day because it truly was my responsibility, it was my company after all, and he had done nothing wrong.  I still feel guilty about it seven years later although I feel marginally better knowing that his next job landed him a minority stake in a business that has been very successful.  The second instance left my memory as soon as it happened (the guy was an amoral schmuck), although I wondered about my hiring abilities for a while. So if Ken is anything like most managers I’ve known he probably considers Friday one of his worst days in the business.  Hopefully he won’t have too many more like it.