Jan 8, 2009

Layoffs at the Daily News*, **

Here's the newsroom cut list for the Los Angeles Daily News:
Tyrone Harris, editorial assistant
Gregg Miller, graphics
Roger Vargo, photo/pre-pressing
Patrick O'Connor, editorial cartoonist
Steve Dilbeck, sports columnist
Jammie Salugabang, features copy editor/online
Stewart Slavin, copy/slot editor
Simone Trimm, editorial assistant in features
Roger Vargo, picture editor
I'm also told that assistant city editor Aron Miller, who is taking a job with Rep. Fran Pavley, stepped up to take the buyout, but lost out on his severance package because L.A. Observed had reported that he'd already accepted the job. He loses two weeks pay for every year of employment.

*Updated with additional names.

**As Kevin Roderick at LA Observed points out, Miller did confirm to Roderick that he was taking a job with Pavley before Roderick posted the information on his site. I should have made that clearer.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, at least no one from the news side was touched. All insignificant cuts, thank goodness.

Anonymous said...

I hope you are being sarcastic...

Anonymous said...

Um no cuts are insignificant - I am sure these people have rent to pay also.

Anonymous said...

A class act LANG.

Anonymous said...

Photo is from the news side.

Anonymous said...

Graphics is from the news side too...

Anonymous said...

Insignificant cuts? You're destined for LANG management. What an arse.

Anonymous said...

All are considered newsroom staffers. All made significant contributions to the paper. And all deserve our appreciation and respect. There was nothing insignificant about them or their work.

Anonymous said...

I'm not the guy, but I'm pretty sure they were being sarcastic.

Anonymous said...

I think they first poster was joking, people.

Anonymous said...

Miller should seriously consider getting himself a lawyer. Taking away his severance is a cheap shot, typical of small men with little dreams and pinched souls.

Bleed 'em dry.

Anonymous said...

What kind of petty A--holes are running this LANG show??? Taking someone's severance??? God I hope there is a special place for them in hell that includes seats covered in razorblades.

Anonymous said...

LANG is a dying organism inside a dying host inside a largely dying industry.

I hold no truck with the lackeys carrying out these firings, and I won't dispute a previous poster's suggestion that they are small men (and women) with little dreams and pinched souls.

Whether they know it or not, they're pawns themselves, trapped in the same death spiral.

Carolina Garcia will no doubt eventually wind up in an academic sinecure, probably in Texas, teaching "communications" to the next generation of cannon fodder.

I'll leave it to others here to speculate what inglorious end Steve Lambert will face.

But make no mistake: Before this is over, they will all suffer the same fate.

Media News, LANG and its papers are all dying. Month by month, 10 or 12 jobs at a time. These layoffs comprise January's batch. Next month we'll be back lamenting February's... then March's... and so on.

Eventually, they'll run out of people to lay off. Jim Janiga will hand himself the last pink slip, and it will be over.

There will be nobody left to turn off the lights, but it won't matter -- the energy will have long since drained away...

Anonymous said...

Don't blame Steve Lambert. He is a dedicated journalist who is doing everything he can to save these papers.

He hasn't gotten rid of anyone who didn't deserve it; the people who left don't fit into the LANG mission.

Anonymous said...

True, these LANG anagers who decide who stays and who goes will eventually be gone too. The difference is, these managers will likely have earned themselves a nice little nest egg of severance they didn't give to those laid off that will be more than most of us make in a year. Or two.

The rest of us just get a tiny pink paper.

Anonymous said...

If you've already accepted a new job, why the hell would you expect a severance????? Didn't you already quit your current employer?

Anonymous said...

Don't blame Steve Lambert. He is a dedicated journalist who is doing everything he can to save these papers.

Please. The blood on his hands from the heads they keep cutting proves that "everything he can" isn't simply not enough. He's not smart enough, or experienced enough, or capable enough, or innovative enough, to do anything but his master's bidding in chopping heads.

And spare me the "dedicated journalist" crap. If he cared a whit about the quality of the journalism, the integrity of the product or the dignity of the people in that newsroom then he would have gone down fighting like Ron Kaye did.

That's what honorable people do. But there's no honor left in this crew. Only fear, hiding behind cold authoritarianism as they force-march to the execution chamber a whole lot of good people who relied on them to be better.

Anonymous said...

Shouldda kept ya mouth shut if ya wanted some extra cash-ola! Why go running around saying yous got other jobs when u got a nice package comin'?

Anonymous said...

He hasn't gotten rid of anyone who didn't deserve it; the people who left don't fit into the LANG mission.

What exactly is the LANG mission, and how do these job actions serve it? The business is collapsing because the suits have no idea where they're going, let alone how to get there...

Wait, what? You were being sarcastic? Oh. I get it.... "LANG mission." HAH! Good one!

Anonymous said...

LANG mission = Make some shareholders a few bucks, even if that means destroying multiple longstanding businesses and countless lives.

Mission accomplished.

Anonymous said...

Roderick came to Aron Miller, not the other way around....

Anonymous said...

No I do blame Lambert.

Anonymous said...

Lets not forget those who just got laid off at the PT today. Myself; among others.

Anonymous said...

sounds like Miller may have misplayed it by resigning rather than waiting for them to lay him off with severance.

But even if that's the case, it's a chickenshit move by LANG. The few weeks pay that they'll save won't be enough to prevent the inevitable next round of layoffs next month.

Anonymous said...

The bleeding out continues at the Daily Breeze too. No one is safe.

Anonymous said...

What's happening at the breeze?

Anonymous said...

So far 3 or 4 ad people, 1 photographer, 1 features admin. assistant.

Anonymous said...

Yup...cuts at the PT today too...

Anonymous said...

This is insane.

Anonymous said...

Will Rogers never met---fill in your favorite lang honcho.

Seems to me the troll was more right than wrong and it is still playin out.

Anonymous said...

The "troll hater" probably feels really stupid right about now. That is, if they still have a job.

That's the thanks you get for tryin to warn people.

Anonymous said...

I worked very informally with Lambert, so I didn't get a sense of how big a jerk he is or isn't. But "go down fighting like Ron Kaye"? Please, for all his talk, and crocodile tears, he only went down "fighting" when he ran out of asses to kiss. Let's not make him a martyr, or worse, a hero.

Anonymous said...

If you were working for Hitler, what could you say to him except, "Jahwohl, Mein Fuehrer?"

That's where Lambert is right now. He isn't the villain. He is a weak little man who is riding a tiger and has no choice but to hang on or he'll wind up inside the tiger.

Face it, there just aren't very many people anymore who will quit to save someone else's job.

Anonymous said...

Kaye got fired when he refused to make any more cuts. Lambert's still there chopping away. That may not make Kaye are martyr or a hero. But it certainly makes Lambert a jerk.

Anonymous said...

Touche!

Anonymous said...

The difference between the two is that Kaye is a good man and a talented journalist, while Lambert has very little talent and suffers from little man's disease.

Anonymous said...

I worked with Jammie when she was at the PT... they just lost a great designer and copy editor.