Buyouts at the Courant

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The Laurel has been told that nearly everyone on the print side of the Hartford Courant is being offered buyouts….offers not being made to TV or web people. A series of meetings are taking place today to give out information. Apparently if not enough people take the buyout by May 3rd then layoffs will follow.

From Paul Stern’s Courant Alumni site:

They’ve offered a buyout package — one week -per year served — to just about everyone in the newroom and some of the business side ops (web page people, TV and their bosses are exempt, of course.) the guess is that they’re looking for at least 15 sign-ups from news and are told that layoffs will follow (at the same rate of severance) if they come up short of whatever their goal is when the two-week period is up. They have already developed a huge newsroom reorganization even before they know who and how many leave –which suggests that people will be shovelled into assignments they don’t want or aren’t good at. Sounds like some sections could be folded into others, some even disappearing. This new plan will be announced before the end of the week so that people can make a judgment of what kind of paper they will be working for in a couple of weeks.

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20 COMMENTS

  1. Here’s another idea: Offer a ‘buyout’ to the Courant’s leftist managerial and editorial staff and let someone else take over those duties. I’d rather trust the editorial instincts of the people in the pressroom and driving the trucks to represent the broader interests of the community than the woolie-headed eltists who populate the editorial board. The current administrative and editorial team has done more to alienate the Greater Hartford readership than anything I can recall. It’s no wonder the paper is failing. You can’t keep catering to a narrow but powerful sector of the community (viz., unions and their boughts & paid legislative puppets) and expect to survive at the news stand

  2. This “leftist” organization of yours just endorsed Romney. Do you even listen to yourself? I know rhetoric is fun and it’s a real kick to see your own words appear in the comment section online, but can you please try and find even the tiniest grasp on reality?

  3. Say what you wish but for the 30 plus years I have lived in Connecticut this paper has promoted for the most part extreme, liberal, and leftist slanted ideas that have dragged our state down to where it is today. I so vividly recall their unrelentless editorial pounding in support of Weicker’s income tax. How did that work out for you ? These people actually pay Susan Campbell to write her extreme left leaning philosophy. It is well past time for this bunch running this rag into the ground to call it a day and let a new management in, one whose politics resemble common sense.

  4. Why are the TV people exempt?? Except for Hardin, Coppola, Rumbold, Geoff Fox and Joe Furey, who actually have authority and credibililty, get rid of some of the low-experience TV star wannabes they’ve been throwing at us for years

  5. Sad again what does Graziano think he’s up to?? I’m surprised that he can wake up in the morning with a straight face after the boner moves he’s pulled over the past few guttings. What paper is left of the old era- remember the Times Courant wars? now what do we have having only one show in town(Bad at that)? Thank God the JI still understands what it takes for quality – not talking about the web or TV they are another story for another day– another sad day for the media in Hartford… actually sickening and I call myself a member of the 3rd Estate..

    A Concerned Writer
    Southington

  6. The newspaper is a bit left, but look at stations like WTIC. A convicted fellon in Rowland and El Rushbo. They more than make up the far right. Corruption? you dont need to go any further than there on the right.

    Yet, I read the Courant and do listen to WTIC. I can handle both and do not vote strictly democrat or republican.