This round of layoffs follows cuts last year in which the jobs of layout editors and designers were outsourced and 12 newsroom positions were eliminated shortly thereafter. The current layoffs will further diminish the PD’s unionized workforce and calls into question what a “daily” print newspaper in Cleveland will even consist of.
The current weekday editions are already composed mostly of Associated Press stories, wire reports and cleveland.com capsules. The skeleton crew who will still be employed by the PD by the end of the month might simply assemble content produced elsewhere for local consumption. Some who are laid off may be offered jobs in the non-union cleveland.com newsrooms. More coordination with cleveland.com will absolutely be required.
“The reason [for the layoffs] is strictly financial,” wrote Warsinskey, a refrain that Northeast Ohioans have heard many times in the past decade, as Advance has orchestrated its union-busting, ahem digital, strategy. “The industry revenue model has changed and print newspapers have struggled to overcome deep losses in subscriptions and advertising.”
Warsinskey spun the layoffs as a way for the paper to “amplify” its existing resources. He said that within two weeks, he would announce how remaining reporters would be allocated. But how many reporters will be left? A dozen? Eight? Three?
It’s hard to say. The Guild itself was not notified of the layoffs ahead of time. They were alerted Monday afternoon, along with the public, when they were sent Warsinskey’s column. The Chair of the Guild, health reporter Ginger Christ, tweeted that the newsroom was still processing the news. Several of the Guild’s employees worried that this might happen when, last year, a “no layoff” clause expired and was not renewed during bargaining.
Despite the grim announcement, Warsinskey encouraged readers not to fret about a potential “news desert” in town. To the contrary, he suggested that the market was doing “OK” relative to other midsize cities and that the Plain Dealer and cleveland.com had between them 77 journalists covering stories in Northeast Ohio.”
It’s needless to note that the cleveland.com and Plain Dealer newsrooms have long been working at odds, not as complementary outfits. The 77 who remain, the vast majority of whom write for cleveland.com and many of whom produce web or social media content not optimized for print, represent a dramatic decline from the PD’s heydey in the late 90s, when roughly 340 journalists covered the news.
In a note to local reporters and editors with a link to his column, Warsinskey said that he would not be participating in any interviews on the subject during the next two weeks.
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This article appears in Mar 4-10, 2020.
Shocking !
Just Shocking!
Time to learn to code.
From Rachel Dissell to Leila Attassi…it couldn’t happen to a more entitled group of snots.
In fairness, you did get a week and a half to relish in the removal of comments.
Learn To Code.
Perhaps it was a well thought out contingency plan for these “journalists” to fight alongside the ACLU to allow Vagrants to continue to beg at highway exit ramps. Maybe it was the Lord opening a window after closing a door.
Either way, I look forward to seeing you posted up with signs that say, “Homeless, Broken, Unskilled and $100K in debt from Student Loans. Anything Helps.”
It appears more important than ever for other publications such Scene to include continued coverage of local politics (aka shenanigans) in this corruption-filled, outrageously high-taxed city and county!!!
Oh you mean constantly attacking your audience as being racist and pushing the insane leftist agenda isn’t selling?
It’ll work out for scene though.
This is so great! Soon Quinn will be begging that his tenure at the helm of the pd has the ‘right to be forgotten’! Maybe you should lean a bit more left Chris and figure out new ways to protect people that continuously break the law or make horrible life decisions! I’m sure that will bring you more readers!
Quinn’s destruction of the PD is comedy gold!
Pretty soon Troy Smiff and Joey Moronavirus will be the only ones left.
Hahahahahahahaha
Good riddance a liberal rag going down the tubes amazing
What,,,,,no more ‘A Greater Cleveland’ stories. Articles such as these, trying to get folks to feel sorry for people in a bind, a bind they created themselves, may have more to do with lack of subscribers. That and the substandard journalism skills .
Funny how these liberals want to do away with the unions. I hope the unions finally get a clue that they’re just being used for votes.
#2020
#MAGA
– Dickson Tufar (yeah, it’s me)
Oops, that should be…
#TRUMP2020
#MAGA
Hey guys/gals. Miss you.
Regardless of your politics or your like/dislike of the PD journalists, not having a daily newspaper is a HUGE disservice to your community. It means NO ONE is watching the city government, the school boards, , the zoning, the crime/police, any political dealings. It means YOUR kids won’t get their recognition in the paper when they do something great. It means YOU won’t know what the hell is going on around you. Go ahead, bury your head in the sand and spend your time scrolling through People magazine’s website. Don’t complain when your taxes shoot up even higher or when politicians screw you and your family with bad dealings. Good luck to you.
GoodLuckToYou,,,,are you from Cleveland?
The P.D. endorses political candidates all the way to prison in Ctown.
Crime/police, TheP.D. is anti police and procriminal just like the City administration.
Speaking of City of Cleveland administration, they are rarely in the news,,,,and it’s not because they are so productive, or working hard for the citizens. Go away
Bye Quinnnnn!!!!! Your censorship and over the top liberal spin even to the point of fake news is giving you everything you deserve. Love it!
The same right-wing asshat troll that spends all his waking hours spamming SCENE’s comments has once again been hard at “work” here. The time stamp never lies, clown.