By Phil Galewitz
From the Summer 2008 issue of HealthBeat
The e-mail arrived just after lunch on Tuesday, Aug. 20: "This afternoon we completed the newsroom staff reductions for The Post and La Palma that we began in June. We'll miss all the talented people who have left us. Now we must look ahead to what we are, where we want to go, and how we'll get there."At last, the cloud that I worked under for most of 2008 at The Palm Beach Post had lifted. I still had a job.
It used to be, in journalism, your goal was to complete a major investigative project or win a major statewide or national award. Today, journalists like me are worried about just surviving.
The Post was one of the last Florida newspapers to cut its staff. But that didn't ease any tensions in our newsroom as the paper sought to "get smaller."
I'd written about layoffs many times during my 20-year newspaper career in Harrisburg Pa.; Palm Beach, Fla.; and New York. But it wasn't until I was faced with the threat directly that I would know the fear and anxiety it brings.
In February our publisher sent us a memo saying the newspaper would have to shrink to meet economic changes. A few weeks later, he announced he was retiring after more than 20 years at the paper's helm.
Phil Galewitz
Our new publisher arrived in March and word of cutbacks and buyouts intensified. Rumors spread for weeks. Would it be layoffs? Buyouts? A combination? Who would be fired? Who would be eligible for buyouts?
At first, we thought cutbacks would be about 20 percent of our 300-person newsroom. Then we heard 30 percent. Then the whopping 40 percent.
Each day, we'd open our e-mails awaiting for The Memo from our editor or publisher that would reveal our fate. Finally at the end of June it arrived just after 10 a.m. The latest rumors were right on. The paper decided to offer buyouts to everyone on staff with more than five years tenure at the paper. The buyout would be two weeks of pay for every year of service up to a maximum of one year. Health benefits would continue through the end of 2008.
Everyday, I'm reminded of the cuts when I see the dozens of empty desks in our newsroom. I still wonder who are the lucky ones: Those who left or those left behind.
The kicker: If enough people did not take the buyouts – more than 120 – it would have to resort to layoffs or, as the paper called it, "involuntary separations."
We had three weeks to decide whether to stay or go. For those over 55, who could take the buyout and get retirement benefits, the decision was relatively easy. For everyone else, it was nerve wracking.
As the paper's main health writer, colleagues told me I would likely be able to keep my job. But of course, editors could make no promises. Part of me wanted to take the buyout, which would give me about six months pay. But with a wife and two kids counting on me for financial support, it just didn't seem right to take the buyout without having the guarantee of another job. So I rolled the dice.
Eventually, nearly 100 in our newsroom applied for the buyout. The paper accepted them all. Combined with the open positions that would go unfilled, it added up to a nearly 40 percent cut in staff. Unfortunately, our paper still needed to make a small number of layoffs.
Thankfully, I was on vacation on Aug. 12, the last day of work for all who took the buyouts. I said my good-byes before leaving for vacation a few days earlier. Watching so many good friends and talented writers and editors depart was incredibly sad and demoralizing.
Fittingly, the week the paper was to make its layoff announcement, tropical storm Fay rolled into South Florida. As the rain was still falling from the storm, the memo from our editor arrived saying the cuts were completed. In the end, just three people in the newsroom were laid off – none of them writers or editors.
I felt like screaming: "Our long nightmare was over."
It was and it wasn't. Sure, my job was safe. But everyday, I'm reminded of the cuts when I see the dozens of empty desks in our newsroom. I still wonder who are the lucky ones: Those who left or those left behind.
Our editors have been realistic about what the cuts will mean. They've never exhorted the throwaway phrase: "We'll have to do more with less."
As I write this, I am the not just the main health writer at The Palm Beach Post. I am the one and only. Just a few years ago we had three full-time health writers and two more who covered the issue part time. It was just two years ago that I proposed forming a health reporting team at The Post.
At least my paper still has a full-time health writer. The same can't be said for The Miami Herald, The Rocky Mountain News and a growing number of daily newspapers.
But that's enough self-loathing.
Today, two bumper stickers on my desk point the way to the future.
"Yesterday is a foreign country. You can't go back."
"If it's not fun, why do it?"
Phil Galewitz is editor of HealthBeat, an AHCJ board member and a health writer for The Palm Beach Post.
