The bad news: Management at the KC Star is asking two employees to decide which among the two will be laid off:
You could call it the “Hunger Games” approach to layoffs – one that’s getting a big thumbs-down from workplace experts.
Hunger schmunger. I call it the “Michael Scott” approach.
The Kansas City Star recently told two of its journalists, Karen Dillon and Dawn Bormann, that only one of them could keep her job — and the employees themselves would have to decide who should leave the company, according to the media blog JimRomenesko.com.
Dillion confirmed the report in an e-mail to NBC News, but did not provide any more details. The investigative reporter has worked for the Kansas City Star since 1991, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The good news?
Well, there really isn’t any. Although the idea that yet another left-toady publisher is circling the drain is probably a nice consolation prize.
Here’s the thing – this is their third round of layoffs since a new publisher came on board. No one there appears to be grown up enough to recognize that the business model pioneered by Col. McCormick & W R Hearst in the 1900’s doesn’t work and that they need a major re-organization with a lot more layoffs. Since most reporters and editors think they are “called” to the profession, they aren’t willing to understand the business side of the business. Romensko/Poynter sites are chronicling the end of an industry. Is it funny or ironic (damn you Alanis Morrissette!) that the same people who yuck it up at the thought of the GOP’s dying constituency are themselves suffering the same fate?
Seflores, I think it’s poetic justice!