Subject: Layoffs and Downsizing

• Re: Layoff and Buyouts at the Houston Chronicle

  October 30, 2007

• Houston Chronicle Staffers Facing Buyouts, Layoffs

  September 4, 2008

• Re: Houston Chronicle Staffers Facing Buyouts, Layoffs

  September 5, 2008

• Disconnected

  April 1, 1999

• Rocks Off Is Interviewing This Guy Tomorrow

  October 16, 2008

• Pink Slip Exhibits

  When the cash-flush MFAH vows no layoffs, don't believe it

  April 17, 2003

• Got Mad, Got Even

  March 23, 1995

• The Insider

  September 14, 1995

• Station Break

  February 8, 1996

• Beneath the Dogs

  May 9, 1996

• Here's A Plan: Fewer People, More Work At The Chronicle

  The Houston Chronicle is having problems, like most big-city dailies, but it might get a whole lot worse. One of the latest rumors sweeping the San Francisco Chronicle would have the deskies in Houston handling headline writing, copy editing and layout for their ailing sister paper by The Bay. The other option is India. This is bound to raise the grumbling in the Houston Chronicle newsroom a few decibels as Chronistas await the next layoff wave of layoffs of 10 percent or more. The situation in

  February 27, 2009

• At The Chron: Where You Going With Those Boxes, Boy?

  Photo by laffy4kIt's been an excruciating five-week wait for employees of Houston's only daily newspaper who are scheduled to learn today and tomorrow if they still have jobs. As one nervous reporter described it on Twitter a few days ago, "Out working on plans B-through-F. Anything to take mind off impending Tuesday doom."Today, then, is Doomsday. To be followed Wednesday by Doomsday II.Yesterday, Chronicle executives told employees the latest round of layoffs at the newspaper, first announc

  March 24, 2009

• Some Thoughts On The Chronicle Cuts: So Long, Suburbs

  (Note: For a while, this item was posted with the wrong byline -- it's by Steve Olafson, not Richard Connelly, and always has been. Thanks, and sorry.)The layoffs at the Houston Chronicle cut much deeper into the editorial side of the newspaper than the announced company-wide 12 percent reduction that was announced by publisher Jack Sweeney. By the count of newsroom workers who survived, 27 percent of the paper's editorial staffers were let go yesterday.That amounts to 90 employees, they said

  March 25, 2009

• Layoff Tales From The Chron

  The layoff tales are spreading from 801 Texas, home of the Houston Chronicle. Here's one. A former copy editor relates her day: my favorite part of the whole experience was being greeted with an offhand joke about copy editors by the bigwig who told me my copy editing job was being eliminated.  or maybe it was being shuffled off to an office with an "outplacement specialist" who peppered me with questions about what other jobs i might want right after being given the news. or maybe it

  March 26, 2009

• Chron Guts Sports Department

  Photo by Lori Greig On Tuesday, the Houston Chronicle laid off a whole bunch of writers and reporters, including Michael Murphy, MK Bower, and Terrance Harris, the beat writers for the University of Houston, Rice, and TSU. On Wednesday, while they were laying off people over on the advertising and sales side of the paper, they made some changes over at the sports section. And I doubt the Chron is done. For those who haven't checked out the Chron today, you may not know, but while TSU still ap

  March 26, 2009

• Best Karaoke

  September 21, 2000

• Chron Guts Sports Department

  Photo by Lori Greig On Tuesday, the Houston Chronicle laid off a whole bunch of writers and reporters, including Michael Murphy, MK Bower, and Terrance Harris, the beat writers for the University of Houston, Rice, and TSU. On Wednesday, while they were laying off people over on the advertising and sales side of the paper, they made some changes over at the sports section. And I doubt the Chron is done. For those who haven't checked out the Chron today, you may not know, but while TSU still ap

  March 26, 2009

• Layoffs at the Houston Chronicle

  The Black-and-White Blues

  April 2, 2009

• Bon Appétit!

  Have a Nice Day with some ´80s heartthrobs

  February 16, 2006

• Best Radio News

  September 23, 2004

• Children of Enron

  One of Ken Lay's many legacies: the families whose lives were disrupted by the fall

  July 15, 2004

• Talky? You Bet!

  Sheila Jackson Lee's verbosity leads to a jackpot

  February 12, 2004

• Chicken Soup with a Goal

  The Enron story is about more than fat compensation packages and falsified ledgers

  November 27, 2003

• Logos, Lies and Layoffs

  A walk in the city parks department

  June 26, 2003

• Bloody Monday

  For 14 workers of the struggling opera, the fat lady sings

  May 30, 2002

• Any Story Will Do

  It's rerun time with the Chronicle's Enron coverage

  February 28, 2002

• Hard to Say Good-bye

  Economic woes hit the Chronicle, and job cuts are coming

  September 6, 2001

• Two Of The Five Chronicle Award Winners From The Weekend No Longer There

  In the category of good news/bad news, we have a journalism item for you. Five employees of The Houston Chronicle won first place recognition over the weekend in the annual Texas Associated Press Managing Editors journalism competition, the most ballyhooed in-state contest in the insular, self-congratulatory world of newspapering.Unfortunately, two of the five Chron winners were among those laid off a month ago.We're speaking of Claudia Kolker, who won a first place prize for editorial writing,

  April 27, 2009

• Ford Honcho Tells Houstonians The Domestic-Car Market Ain't Dead Yet

  Mark Fields, the flashy young head of Ford's Americas division, ran through the many woes of the auto industry before a group of mostly white-haired local car dealers who gathered for a luncheon yesterday at the Galleria Westin Hotel. There were the massive stock dips and job losses, the government takeover of his two biggest domestic rivals. National car sales, he said, have sunk to 1982 levels -- and there was an economic downturn even then. "Just makes you want to jump out of bed every m

  May 29, 2009

• Houston Chronicle, Modestly Declining To Blow Its Own Horn. For Some Reason

  Photo by alex-sThe Houston Chronicle bannered a headline Saturday over a story about federal inspectors criticizing the Harris County Jail: "County Jail Fails Feds' Probe."The story outlined the results of the inspection, saying "poor access to health care and life-threatening conditions" at the jail violated inmates' rights.What brought on the inspections in the first place? "The Department of Justice initiated its investigation last year after the jail, which has failed four of its last six st

  June 9, 2009

• Kemah Says It's Firing Cops Due To Ike; Cops Think Otherwise

  Photo by Daniel KramerMaybe you heard, but Hurricane Ike smashed up Kemah pretty badly, and things aren't looking too good for the city these days.Sure, the vaunted boardwalk is coming back, and the local Wal-Mart is scheduled to reopen today, but the city has reported about a $400,000 loss in revenue after Ike-related damage closed the boardwalk for three months. So, city officials have planned a "strategic planning meeting" to decide how to address the shortage of money. It's scheduled f

  July 8, 2009

• Life, Post-Ike: A Full Recovery

  September 10, 2009