Tulsa World lays off 28 employees

[Sardonicus Rex]

quote:Originally posted by RecycleMichael

My mother and wife were both reporters at one time in their life. There is life after working at the newspaper.

I can vouch for that, Michael. I was a reporter once ... ONCE! [/johnny dangerously reference] I think I even talked to you a time or two, but that was many moons ago.

"Real" jobs aren't nearly as fun, but in my experience the hours, benefits and pay have been better, generally speaking.

Still, it sucks to have your livelihood and career jerked out from under you. My thoughts go out to everybody affected.

[Michael71]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

well, the upside is that the new website will be even faster now that there is less content to load

LoL...to be honest, I get a lot of my city info here!

[Gold]

Eric Bailey just came on 1430 AM . . . as a TW reporter.  Think he's still employed there.

[Wilbur]

To say the Tulsa World is the best paper we have, when it's the only paper we have, is too bad.

When the Tulsa Tribune was here, it was a much better paper, but because of their mutual agreement with the World, which the World terminated, the Tribune died a quick death after many years of service.

Ever since then, the Tulsa World has gone down hill horribly.  I find them unethical.  The last straw for me was with their involvement in Great Plains Airlines.  You could read how many articles and never see one by-line that said the Tulsa World was actively involved (and partially owned the airline, if I remember correctly)?  Sorry folks, but that is basic journalism.

Since they lost their competition, they allowed their standards to deteriorate.

I know many people who work there and find them great people, but question how some of them choose to run a newspaper.  Until they decide to take a different approach to reporting the news (like trying to stay neutral), I'll take USAToday.

[mh10]

The word at the State Capitol press room, where I worked 40 years ago with UPI, is that mick hinton and tom lindley were terminated today, leaving only barbara hoberock.

[inteller]

i heard one guy was there for 35 years.  sounds like they are getting all the people close to retirement.

interesting that recently they got rid of in house security and outsourced that to Securitas, all the old guys that manned the front desk were canned and had to reapply at Securitas, and of course securitas wouldn't hire them because they were too old and couldn't pass a physical.

I guess TW is cutting away the chaff.

they need to Cut that rUNT PJ Lassek.

[Chicken Little]

So, if they let go 26 news staff, how many are left?

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by Chicken Little

So, if they let go 26 news staff, how many are left?

they have a LOT, but it sounds like they made a huge cut (closed?) the capital bureau.

[mh10]

Apparently the World didn't close their capitol bureau, but as I mentioned above, they apparently terminated 2 of their 3 capitol reporters. That's a very serious cut. I worked for UPI at the capitol 40 years ago, and even then it required at least two people to cover the capitol -- one for the state senate, and one for the state house. The World won't be able to do anywhere as good a job if they only have one capitol reporter. It doesn't bode well for an informed electorate, although they will be able to get by, using AP stories from the capitol.

[DowntownNow]

Inteller...

It's unfortunate that such a knowledgable individual such as yourself, who has expressed many a great opinion on here in the past, lowered yourself to such a standard as to attack a TW writer personally and using such a blatant and vulgar term in the process.  You may have been trying to be clever in your way of expressing your dislike of PJ Lassek, using your little capitalized letters and such, but your post only demonstrates how simple minded and distasteful some can be on here when there is no reason or justification for it.  I would think this is a forum in which educated, well intentioned individuals can express their ideas, concerns and opinions in order to engage in dialogue about news and events happening around and effecting us.

I have had the opportunity to meet PJ Lassek several times over the last couple of years and while I do not agree with everything PJ Lassek writes, I do understand that most times she is subject to the review of her editors and must leave certain information out of articles.  She is a woman simply performing her job, if you have a personal beef with her, you should keep it just that, personal.  

The loss of any jobs in Tulsa hurts us all and the start of this post was to inform its readership of such.  We should be asking ourselves what can be done to help those whose jobs were terminated today and offering suggestions to them on here instead of using it to berate, name call and attack an individual that could have just as easily been victim to this job loss as well.

I would certianly hope others within this forum would not take a liking to your posting either...it speaks ill of the type of people Tulsa has come to be known by - people that are caring and sincere, particularly when their neighbors are in need.  We lead best by example and your's sir is not the example I want to be reading in this fine forum and sharing with those I want to encourage to move here.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by DowntownNow

Inteller...

It's unfortunate that such a knowledgable individual such as yourself, who has expressed many a great opinion on here in the past, lowered yourself to such a standard as to attack a TW writer personally and using such a blatant and vulgar term in the process.  You may have been trying to be clever in your way of expressing your dislike of PJ Lassek, using your little capitalized letters and such, but your post only demonstrates how simple minded and distasteful some can be on here when there is no reason or justification for it.  I would think this is a forum in which educated, well intentioned individuals can express their ideas, concerns and opinions in order to engage in dialogue about news and events happening around and effecting us.

I have had the opportunity to meet PJ Lassek several times over the last couple of years and while I do not agree with everything PJ Lassek writes, I do understand that most times she is subject to the review of her editors and must leave certain information out of articles.  She is a woman simply performing her job, if you have a personal beef with her, you should keep it just that, personal.  

The loss of any jobs in Tulsa hurts us all and the start of this post was to inform its readership of such.  We should be asking ourselves what can be done to help those whose jobs were terminated today and offering suggestions to them on here instead of using it to berate, name call and attack an individual that could have just as easily been victim to this job loss as well.

I would certianly hope others within this forum would not take a liking to your posting either...it speaks ill of the type of people Tulsa has come to be known by - people that are caring and sincere, particularly when their neighbors are in need.  We lead best by example and your's sir is not the example I want to be reading in this fine forum and sharing with those I want to encourage to move here.

hey, it is your perogative if you want to support a shill for the mayor who presents half the story or issues hired gun stories.  The beef I have is with her reporting (or lack thereof rather).  When people think about all that is wrong with TW and its biased stances on various issues, I think of her reporting. You can't sit there smugly at your keyboard and write off that all those hired gun articles were done by the editors. Take her and The Pi---er I mean Cronley and eshew with them and the TW would immediately become a better paper.

[RecycleMichael]

I disagree with you inteller.

I think that the city hall reporters do a good job. It is one of the hardest beats to cover. This was the same job my mother and wife had when they were reporters. You want to get the facts correct, but need to build relationships for access, while dealing with red tape bureaucrats and egotistical power hungry elected officials, and all the while hearing from editors who want the story to read a certain way.

PJ Lassek and Brian Barber both are constantly at city meetings I attend and I am surprised at how often they get the officials to comment on topics. They have the perfect demeanor to get the right quote for the right story. That is a real knack.

Compare the amount of news coverage the Tulsa World gives to city hall business to the coverage of county and state issues. You will see that these reporters are cranking out story after story to keep us readers informed.

I will agree that the Tulsa World has an agenda. I don't blame them. There has also been power in media. They piss me off on a regular basis, but then win back my admiration when they do things like raise $400,000 for needy families during Christmas.

Newspaper have always had a bad reputation. Mark Twain said, "If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."  I don't think that The Tulsa World does a bad job of informing me, I just don't stop getting my information from them before making up my own mind.

[inteller]

"egotistical power hungry elected officials"

Yeah she has quite the rapport with them.  But now I think she suffers from Stockholm Syndrome.  Here is a perfect example:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20090104_11_A1_MayorK998412

The title of this article was "Leaders organize stimulus requests"

So, based off of that I look at the article to see what various leaders had to say about it.  

Only problem is after a quick blurb about the vague parties involved it is Taylor this Taylor that Taylor blah and Taylor blat....only at the end of the article did she stop licking Taylor's boot to see that the BA city manager had something to say.  Then it was more Taylor, Taylor, Taylor....seven paragraphs started with "Taylor".  What did Tulsa County have to say?  What did the other "municipal officials" have to say?

Typical Lassek mayor shill article.

[RecycleMichael]

So your real problem is with positive coverage about Mayor Tayor. Have you ever said anything nice about her?

You don't like a certain reporter because she doesn't attack people you don't like.

Face it, inteller, you don't like many things.

You have spent months attacking almost every restaurant, elected official and TulsaNow posters on this forum. The fact that you don't like something that most do says volumes about your self-worth.

I feel sad for you. Read all about it.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by RecycleMichael

So your real problem is with positive coverage about Mayor Tayor. Have you ever said anything nice about her?

You don't like a certain reporter because she doesn't attack people you don't like.

Face it, inteller, you don't like many things.

You have spent months attacking almost every restaurant, elected official and TulsaNow posters on this forum. The fact that you don't like something that most do says volumes about your self-worth.

I feel sad for you. Read all about it.

positive coverage?  More like THE LACK OF COVERAGE.  I don't want to ****ing know just what the mayor thinks.  Last time I checked the Mayor wasn't the leader of everything around here.

I'm sure that Lassek is having an internal conflict now on who to rah rah and shake the pom poms for now that Karen Keith is in office.  But maybe the outcome of that will be we will have more balanced coverage of local government around here.

or maybe not.