Posts Tagged ‘Washington Post’
Washingtonpost.com Dismissals: Layoffs?
Heads are rolling in the Arlington offices of Washingtonpost.com, the longtime WaPo Web lab that is now undergoing a merger with the Post newsroom in downtown D.C. According to a knowledgeable source, the ranks of the RIFed number around ten so far.
City Desk is working on compiling a list of the dismissed, which reportedly includes at least one big industry name.
Meanwhile, one question looms: Are these layoffs? Or just strategic reductions aimed at redundant positions, as Post management would have us believe?
Consider the case of one dismissed employee. This individual was told that the "numbers have been bad on the digital side and because of that, that's why they're doing it."
Another victim of the reduction-in-force reports that the motivation is that the Post is moving to streamline its operations.
Updates to come.
Breaking: Reported Dismissals at Post Web Site
Multiple sources are reporting that several employees at washingtonpost.com are losing their jobs as part of the merger of the site with the main Washington Post newsroom. Several of dot-com's editorial staffers as well as some non-editorial workers are among those who've gotten the ax, according to the sources.
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Vincent Gray Calls Misconduct Allegations ‘Clearly Political’
D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray this afternoon described the motivation behind a pair of stories alleging improprieties on his part as being "clearly political."
The first, and more serious, story was penned by Jeffrey Anderson in this morning's Washington Times. It detailed various small jobs done on Gray's home by William C. Smith & Co., the politically powerful local development company. The second, a Washington Post story by Tim Craig, involved his use of council stationery to ask Comcast for a $20,000 donation to the local delegation to the Democratic State Committee. Gray addressed the controversies in an afternoon appearance on NewsChannel 8's NewsTalk With Bruce DePuyt.
Regarding the DNC allegations, Gray made the case that the fundraising effort was focused on voting-rights awareness, and thus kosher. Given that the check benefited local Democrats attending a political convention, it's awfully questionable distinction to make. But he gets points for this realization: "'If I had to do it over again, I certainly wouldn't have used the stationery."
As for the work on his Hillcrest home, Gray insisted "there was no impropriety that was involved."
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Weekend in Review
The retrocast this week celebrates the cessation of a wet spell that had us all waterlogged as of Friday night. And then, still: People are somehow surprised when we get temps into the high 60s and beyond in mid-November. People are like, Wow, this is warm for November. But for anyone who's been around here for longer than like two or three years, that statement is a pure confession of ignorance. If you have any weather memory at all, you'll know that such temperatures are not uncommon at all through November. Important point here: This is not a broadside against people who don't like the cold nor is it one of those Nordic superiority rants in which the person says, Oh, this ain't cold; you ain't seen cold till you....This is merely a riff about people's lame weather memory.
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District Limerick: Cold and Rainy
'Bout weather, I'm loath to complain
But dammit I hate all this rain
A state of emergency
(Ida's insurgency)
Just was declared by Tim Kaine
And now for my best silver lining:
No need for more weather scheme whining
The WaPo's restoring
Its layout (still pouring)
Good news for all those who were pining
Weekend in Review
Update: I have checked with all my sources in the local media scene. It appears that there was no fight in the Style section of the Washington Post this past Friday, so this coming week will be that much more routine.
The Friday Limerick Review
Today we introduce Hannah Neprash of districtlimerick.com, who will write regularly on D.C. news and politics—in limerick form.
Election week left some aghast
From last year, the difference was vast
A bell-weather? nope
Creigh Deeds had no hope
Before the first ballot was cast
The hearing for marriage rights raged
The witnesses—they got engaged
To make Council swoon
Could be a real boon
Who cares if it felt a bit staged
Final Thoughts on Allen v. Roig-Franzia
Last Friday, two Washington Post journalists got into a fistfight about their work. Longtime writer and editor Henry Allen dissed a piece by staff writer Manuel Roig-Franzia, whereupon Roig-Franzia referred to Allen as a "cocksucker." Allen responded with blows.
Cheap Seats Daily: David Donovan, Snyder’s Latest Newspaper Hater, Was a Paperboy?
For all his media hatred, Dan Snyder stuffs his staff with media people. Karl Swanson was in newspapers. Larry Michael was a radio executive. Even Vinny Cerrato came back to the team after a stint at ESPN, where he spent a season in exile after being banished by Marty Schottenheimer (who looks more like Vince Lombardi every season for what he accomplished here.)
Turns out the latest attack dog added to Snyder's pack, David Donovan, fits the pattern. Donovan's complete lack of respect for the media or the truth or both comes out every time he talks to a reporter these days. For but one example of Donovan's outlook: He's the guy who told the Washington Post a couple weeks ago that Redskins officials "don't see any difference" in "the way our actual fans are behaving" this season.
But, there was a time when Donovan was way into newspapering. It was all spelled out in a 2007 feature story in the Daily Times Herald of Carroll, Iowa, his hometown, to honor the local boy made good when he took the job as General Counsel with the Redskins.
Make that the local paperboy made good.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Iowa State gave DC David Donovan AND Vinny Cerrato? What did DC ever do to Iowa State to deserve that? Why did David Donovan join the dark side leave journalism? Snyder's media appearance starting to smell fishy? Ripken statue stolen by guy named Stoneburner who hangs out with a bunch of stoneburners?)
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Morning Roundup: New Cell-Phone OS vs. Father of Modern Anthropology Edition
Real Talk With Andrew Beaujon™: What is weighing on you most heavily this morning: The death of Claude Lévi-Strauss...or the impending release of DROID?
If you picked DROID, keep reading!
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Allen v. Roig-Franzia Fisticuffs: The Movie
Did anyone actually end up writhing on the floor? Where did Allen connect? Was there any shoving involved? How quickly did Brauchli get to the scene of the crime?
Hit play and find out!
Allen v. Roig-Franzia: From the Beginning
When one man hauls off and punches another in the face, the conflict often has a long-tailed provenance. Such appears to be the case with Washington Post Style section staffers Manuel Roig-Franzia and Henry Allen. Those two got into a tussle on Friday afternoon in the vicinity of Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli's temporary office on the 4th floor of the Washington Post building at 15th and L Streets NW.
Let's mark the start of hostilities as mid-week. That's when, according to an informed source, Allen raised questions about a Roig-Franzia story about a woman who had undergone multiple abortions. In the back and forth, Roig-Franzia allegedly called Allen a "dick." No punches were thrown.
Weekend in Review
Well, it took a few days, but the opinionmakers over at the Washington Post came up with some impressions on how D.C. public schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee handled herself at a pivotal Thursday hearing before the D.C. Council. Here's the WaPo editorial board, which hardly interrupts its yearslong standing ovation of the Rhee regime:
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Our Morning Roundup: Chuck Lane Strikes Back
Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to Freedom Friday! Today's topic: Chuck Lane, former editor of the The New Republic and promoter of the conventional wisdom on the editorial pages of the Washington Post. For those of you who missed last week's FF, I said some not nice things to Chuck. Why did I say those things? Because Chuck Lane was acting like a dick.
Cheap Seats Daily: Will ‘Dumb’ and ‘Dumber’ Shirts Be Allowed at Snyder’s ‘Night of Quarterbacks’?
In case you missed it: Rocken Rollen Stewart, who showed up at televised sporting events carrying a "John 3:16" sign throughout the 1980s, had his sign removed from a Redskins game at RFK in 1984. So he sued.
And he won. But it took eight years before Stewart was told by the courts he could carry his sign into the stadium here.
Times and venues have changed. It's unclear if Rockin' Rollen's case will help victims of the Redskins latest purge. Will somebody who had their poster taken please sue Dan Snyder so we can find out?
***
Also, for the eating-disorder-looking print edition, I squeezed BeerInTheBathroomsGate™ for a few more drops. Completists will want this umpteenth revisitation upon the same story so they can see the only appearance of "oral-fecal" in a sentence. Kind of like getting the repackaged Elvis Costello's Greatest Hits every three years, just for the remixed-again version of "Mystery Dance."
***
David Alperin checks in with some more Dan Snyder weirdness.
Alperin was the first guy to tell me that Snyder changed the sign policy at FedExField. Before the Tampa Bay game, stadium guards confiscated a sign he made saying "Love the Redskins, Hate the Owner."
(AFTER THE JUMP: Fake cheering at FedEx? You're going to use "Douchewellian" again? AND the trademark sign? El Al disputes charges that its security is as Douchewellian as Dan Snyder's? You're going to promote the Great Dan Steinberg again? GEICO signs good, Snyder Sucks signs bad? Why would anybody go to Snyder's "Night of the Quarterbacks"? Brett Haber plays the feud with his former boss?)
