The Dallas Mourning News

All day long the emails have come in, each wondering when we'll note the layoffs currently taking place at The Dallas Morning News. Says here that 38 employees have been given their pink slips and this severance agreement intended to fend off age discrimination lawsuits like the one filed following...

By Robert Wilonsky

September 6, 2011

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All day long the emails have come in, each wondering when we'll note the layoffs currently taking place at The Dallas Morning News. Says here that 38 employees have been given their pink slips and this severance agreement intended to fend off age discrimination lawsuits like the one filed following the '04 layoffs. From what I've been told throughout the day, many of them are revered veterans and recognizable names, even to non-media types, from throughout the newsroom. And some are old friends. I will not name them here.

Early this morning I asked Jim Moroney, the paper's publisher, if he'd have a moment to talk about this latest round of cuts. So far, there has been no word from 508 Young. When I broached the subject in July, upon the shuttering of Quick, he said, "We are continuing to find new ways to line up our expenses with where our revenues are." Of course, this has happened before: In '04, then again in '06, then again in '08, then again in '09, when layoffs were announced in a press release. This afternoon, on FrontBurner, someone posting under the name "One of the victims" wrote that "this isn't about managers or executives trying to fatten their wallets at the expense of the employees. It's about executives in a failing industry trying to hang on as long as they can."

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