Thursday 17 April 2008

TorStar -122

Update 04/19/08
It appears former Toronto Sun staffer Joey Slinger's departure from the Toronto Star this week is only the first of many newsroom employees making their exit.

A Globe and Mail story today says 122 of the Toronto Star's 1,790 employees have accepted voluntary buyouts in the trimming of Torstar's staff of 6,200.

The Canadian Press says the 122 Toronto Star job losses includes "the entire Internet production staff."

TSF tipsters have provided a few Toronto Star newsroom names soon to vanish, but we'll wait until their departures are official.

Word is Al Christie, another former Toronto Sun staffer, has taken a buyout. He has been national editor at the Star.

“These are people who applied for and were granted voluntary separation packages,” Torstar spokesman Bob Hepburn says in John Partridge's Globe story.

Dozens of other jobs in Torstar's newspaper division will also be cut through "voluntary and involuntary staff reductions.”

Overall, about 160 newspaper division positions will be affected.

CP says the Toronto Star's Internet staff layoffs (10 employees) came as a surprise to Maureen Dawson, an official with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.

"Their message to the world is that they're all dedicated to the Internet, but then they lay off the whole department," she told CP.

BTW: 122 job cuts at the Star represent roughly the size of the Toronto Sun's entire editorial staff. Sun employees tend to gloat after scooping the mighty Star, Canada's largest newspaper.

There has always been a lot of deadwood collecting pay cheques at 1 Yonge Street. Unfortunately, more senior, productive staffers are often lost to buyouts.

No comments:

Post a Comment