The October message sent a shiver of fear through the newsroom: Due to declining profits, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel needed to shed at least 50 employees. If there weren’t enough volunteers for the buyout being offered, management would pick people to be axed.
On the day of that announcement, JS reporter Jamaal Abdul-Alim was in probate court wrapping up his late mother’s estate. He’d also just begun a nine-month sabbatical for a fellowship at the University of Michigan. With his mother’s death, “there’s nothing else keeping me connected to the city” besides the paper, he says. So Abdul-Alim filled out a buyout application the next day. The payoff, he says, could help finance his dreams of world travel.
At 34 and just a few months over the 10-year threshold for eligibility, Abdul-Alim wasn’t a veteran atop the salary ladder, the kind of employee the buyout plan had targeted. But he had something in common with the other 21 journalists who chose to leave: It was a chance to make a life change.
“The circumstances were perfect for me,” says travel columnist Dennis McCann, 57, who plans to freelance for other publications while continuing to write for the Journal Sentinel.Architecture columnist Whitney Gould, editorial columnist Greg Stanford and Washington correspondent Kathy Skiba want to work on literature. Stanford has been dabbling in science fiction, Gould wants to write short stories and Skiba is working on a novel.
Other departing bylines belong to outdoor editor Bob Riepenhoff, Crossroads editor Barbara Dembski, real estate writer Michele Derus, Waukesha courts reporter David Doege and Packer Plus editor Dick Pufall. The rest of the exodus includes a mix of assistant editors, copy editors, designers and support staff, along with one photographer.
The paper’s management reportedly didn’t put out a list of departees for fear of how it would be reported in Pressroom, according to some insiders. So much for that strategy.
While the paper is losing some big names, the trims look fairly surgical. The newsroom provided just a third of the 55 to 60 JSemployees taking the buyout. The resulting vacancies most likely to be filled, whether by promotions or outside hires (of younger, lower-salaried employees), include Riepenhoff, Dembski, Stanford and Pufall. Even before Riepenhoff’s December departure (timed for the end of the deer hunting season), some current staffers were vying to succeed him.
Because he’ll continue to freelance for the paper, McCann’s exit may have little impact. But Gould, who reportedly turned down an offer to continue freelancing her column, will be a big loss. She’s one of the paper’s most recognizable voices, and her clout with editors was such that she was allowed to operate as both reporter and critic of architecture and urban planning.
Meanwhile, the paper recently lost three more reporters who were hired away. Education writer Sarah Carr decamped for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, while feature writer Vikki Ortiz and higher education reporter Megan Twohey went to the Chicago Tribune.
The losses of Carr, Twohey and Abdul-Alim (who covered suburban schools) opens a huge gap in education coverage. Given Milwaukee’s national leadership in educational experiments like school vouchers and charter schools, that’s been an important franchise.
The cuts may also cause problems for the copy desk, which several staffers insist is at “bare-bones” levels – a complaint heard in newsrooms around the country. Already, one insider says, “our assistant editors are way too overloaded to edit… Is everybody working to the max? No. Are a lot of people really stretched? Absolutely.”
Turning down the buyout were many veterans stuck in suburban backwaters with little hope of returning to the prestige of the Downtown newsroom. That’s probably because the payout wasn’t much better than what’s already guaranteed for layoffs under the Newspaper Guild’s union contract. Both call for two weeks’ pay for every year of service; the buyout mainly added two months’ worth of health insurance. “Unless you already had something lined up there wasn’t a huge incentive,” says one reporter.
Editor Martin Kaiser and Managing Editor George Stanley deserve credit, says one insider, for “bending over backwards” to avoid layoffs, unlike newspapers elsewhere. But with continuing evidence that the newspaper business is sagging, many staffers remain worried. “Nobody feels like their job is safe just because they’re not getting laid off now,” says one.
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Even as the JSushers out two dozen newspeople, the paper is in the process of making at least one hire – a successor to longtime restaurant critic Dennis Getto. The newspaper has tried out current staffers for the job and has had applications from at least 60 candidates from across the country.
Kaiser has delayed filling the post in order to “put some distance” between Getto’s death and the advent of his successor. “Losing Dennis really hit people hard,” the editor says. “I’ve never worked in a place where the food critic was such a well-loved figure.”
