We’ve had intel pouring in all day about who’s getting laid off at The Courier-Journal. It’s part of parent company Gannett’s latest round of bloodletting, which appears to be taking a major toll on dailies across the country.
Some of those who lost their job at the C-J today, according to multiple sources:
• Arts critic Judith Egerton
• Assistant Managing Editor (news) Andy Alderette
• Assistant Business Editor Paul Rolfes
• Angela Black and Robert Pieroni, from the marketing department
• Lisa Pinkston, who ran the MomsLikeMe project (read her goodbye post here)
• Additionally, we are hearing that some in the press room have been laid off, as well as another in IT, and several others (trying to confirm names/positions)
And two big names are reportedly retiring:
• David Hawpe, Editorial Director and columnist
• Ben Post, Managing Editor
We’ll update as more information arrives.
UPDATE: Just received word from a source inside C-J about layoffs: “We just got a memo from pub saying that everyone who’s getting laid off has been told. it says 44 positions gone, 7% of workforce. “about” 575 remaining.”
Also, David Hawpe told The Ville Voice that if/when he plans to retire, he’ll announce it in a column. May be next month.
4 Comments
Talk about your classic case of addition by subtraction. No more Post. No more Hawpe. No more Alderette. There must be jubilation in the newsroom and beyond. Alderette was not liked or respected by anyone, ever. If Bennie Ivory, Greg Johnson, Harry Bryan and the utterly worthless John Liu were to leave tomorrow, The C-J could be rebuilt into a respectable product again.
Look for Hawpe to land at UofL as a reward from Goober Ramsey for all those years of free PR and cover.
U of L would be lucky to get Hawpe as a professor, though they have such a weak focus on journalism I doubt they’d invest in such a hire.
But as for the “addition by substraction” delusion, let me just say that David Hawpe, thin-skinned, emotional, and kinetic, gave the city of Louisville something every city deserves: An old-fashioned newspaper editor who was quick to have an opinion, loyal to his convictions, and not afraid to lock horns with anyone. On his better days, he managed to write like a prince.
He also was the kind of writer plenty of folks loved to hate — and that too, is a proud tradition of newspapering. He gave the C-J a personality, and the paper will miss him, even if some readers are foolish enough to think they won’t.
If that left-wing parasite Hawpe is hired by U of L my alumni donations will end - forever!