Wednesday, July 23, 2008
News AJC to departing employees: Shhhh!
Posted by Ken Edelstein on Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 3:08 PM
This may sound odd for an organization that prides itself on the free flow of ideas, but staffers who are leaving Atlanta Journal-Constitution are being required to sign an agreement that they won't “disparage” the paper or its management once they leave, according to several AJC employees.
"I was pretty surprised to see that in there," said one reporter who's viewed the agreement.
The AJC didn't care to discuss the stipulation. “As standard practice, we don't disclose any specifics regarding legal agreements we have with employees,” says spokeswoman Jennifer Morrow.
But one employee said the severance agreement being presented to employees this month bars those who sign it from making “any disparaging or untrue statements about the company,” its subsidiaries or any other employee. The source indicated that the quote was lifted from the actual agreement (I'd love to get my hands on a copy; please e-mail me if you'd like to share one).
An employee who left during last year’s buyout confirmed that similar phrasing was in the severance agreement he signed last year. That employee said the agreement caused some former writers and editors to refrain from discussing newsroom management in media coverage last year, specifically an Atlanta Magazine profile of Editor Julia Wallace by former CL writer Steve Fennessy.
Publisher John Mellott announced last week the latest in a series of staff cuts at the paper. The AJC is reducing its workforce of 2,300 by 189 people, including 85 in the newsroom and 104 in sales. Most of the reductions are likely to be achieved through attrition and voluntary severance, although the AJC will resort to layoffs if there aren't enough voluntary departures by the end of the month.
The paper’s voluntary severance package seems pretty decent. Wallace said it includes two weeks salary and benefits for each year an employee worked for the AJC or any other Cox-owned company — up to 52 weeks.
But the gag wording raises an awkward issue for the newspaper, which regularly extols transparency as an expectation for journalists along with others involved in public life. Wallace hasn't yet responded to my e-mail questions about the issue (I'll post her response if she sends one).
Among other newspapers that have reduced their staff size (which means just about every major daily nowadays), some appear to include similar speech restrictions in separation agreements, while others don't. For example, the Chicago Tribune included such wording last year, while sources at the Washington Post and the Miami Herald said that, to the best of their knowledge, their newspapers haven't.
In case you're curious: Creative Loafing's standard separation agreement doesn't include speech restrictions. But, hey, if it did, nobody could contradict me anyway!
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
Comments (10)
Showing 1-10 of 10
I think the AJC's management generally is decent people but I've been really frustrated by this whole process. They just hired a whole bunch of people after the last buyout and now they are reducing staff again. As for the gag order, it does seem odd. But then again, if you're giving someone a year's salary and benefits not to work, you can pretty much ask what you want.
like
dislikeIn accordance with the terms of my employment at Creative Loafing, I feel compelled to tell everyone that this is the best blog post I've ever read on any subject ever.
And that's ok. There are plenty of bloggers perfectly capable of scribing what those departing AJC peeps tell us to. Hell, they flood our Inboxes with those ridiculous Wallace memos, the ones that are quickly becoming parodies of themselves 'cause they are so laden with corporate ya-ya double-speak no one believes a word of, let alone a bitter journalist type. (Think of the scene in Order of The Phoenix where Filtch keeps nailing-up Umbridge's flood of "memos" to the wall, to the point where they all come crashing down. On her head I think.) Anyways... back to the point... y'all can stop sending the I Am Wallace Hear Me Roar To Keep MY Job memos. We just pull 'em off of Romenesko the day they hit YOUR desktops anyway. Besides, seen one, seen 'em all. Yawn. Send something more-better next time, k? After all, we're just here to give the (departing) people what they want - the finger to AJC management. At a time where giving the finger to management could be a very delightful thing to do. It's not like you're going to be going back to a newspaper, after all. Shoot, of one of 'em had the tiniest of steel ovaries/balls, they'd, of course, give the finger themselves, but being sniveling little creatures of elitist habits, I doubt that's gonna happen. No problem. Bloggers are standing by to do your dirty work for you. Builds stamina, if not character, for the road ahead. (The road we're already WAY further down the line on, BTW. Ahead of you, that is.) Watch out for all the potholes!
And one more note on the bureaucratic cluster f*ck that newspaper management has turned themselves into ... the youths are getting restless. Very. http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/07/digging_deeperyoung_newspaper.html
They edited what the employees told us for so long, why stop now. I guess the real test is when somebody does talk and the AJC sues them, a court gets to decide what "disparaging" means.
Non-disparaging clauses are common in Gannett buyouts, too, as I found out trying to interview former USA Today reporters. THey said they couldn't talk because of the agreements they made _ a surprising stance for reporters, I thought.
I'm curious as to how they go about ensuring that the agreement is being upheld. Is there someone on staff running daily Google searches and sorting through blogs to see if this former emplyee is leaving "disparaging" remarks? Also, what constitutes "disparaging?" I am assuming it's all laid out in the document but it seems somewhat subjective.
what utter nonsense, and typical of the kind of bullshit attitudes that got the newspaper industry into the pit it now finds itself in. there's no reason on earht why an employer should not make a no-badmouthing rule when doling out thousands of dollars in severance. go mount a cross, it suits your saintly self-image./]
If you watched The Wire, you know Julia Wallace is the real-life incarnation of this character: http://www.hbo.com/thewire/cast/characters/paper/thomas_klebanow.shtml And I love that Anne Chambers Cox, the fraking owner herself, was listed by Business Week a few years ago as being the second cheapest billionaire in America. Buffett was No. 1, and then he decided to give most of his wealth to the Gate Foundation. So Anne Baby, you're No. 1!!!
Latest in Fresh Loaf
-
Most popular damn posts o' the week 4
A bad week in Pittsburgh
-
5 things today: A$AP Rocky, Art Papers
Rap at the Masquerade, an annual art auction and party, and more
-
More details from Peachtree-Pine court ruling 3
Task Force for Homeless' argument that it was victim to a conspiracy didn't fly in court
- More »
