Grumpy Editor recalls with media layoffs in earlier years, Friday afternoons were the dreaded times editors called staffers together and announced those slated for sad, usually unexpected, departures. Others simply were sent pink slips.
Nowadays, emails --- received at home or at newsroom desks --- sometimes are used to convey departure words from management not wishing to face staffers.
About the strangest place to get a layoff email: Alaska, 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle --- and almost 3,000 miles from the newsroom.
That’s the location of a recent message received by Margot Roosevelt, environment reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
Kevin Roderick in his LAObserved.com disclosed where Roosevelt received The Times email, along with her farewell note to the newsroom.
“I was about to get on a helicopter (thanks to a two-week science journalism grant) with biologists who study how Arctic fire is changing earth’s climate,” wrote Roosevelt, who joined The Times four years ago after 20 years with Time magazine and 13 years with the Washington Post.
“Been sleeping in a cold tent, fending off mosquito swarms and happily roaming over moss-green tundra, the lavender peaks of the Brooks Range in the distance,” she continued.
“I’ve loved the L.A. Times. I’m grateful to have worked with so many people I admire. I’m heartbroken to be leaving. Please keep in touch.”
Meanwhile, among others in a new round of layoffs at the L.A. Times, Roderick mentioned Tim Rutten, op-ed columnist and book reviewer, would be laid off after 39 years --- one year short of retirement.
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