Shelley and cut backs

Well, I demanded an update from my dear Shelley Smith who is living it up in London currently and I got one. A huge update. And it was wonderful. I really hadn't heard from her in a while and it was nice to hear what all she was up to. You may remember her from the collaborative video I did for her on YouTube. I really miss her and sometimes I forget how close we were. Not that I forget our friendship, I could never forget that. However, I think with friends you don't see often it takes contact with them to remind yourself of how awesome you were together.

As for cut backs, our sister paper just cut 130 jobs from their newsroom. Granted, their circulation was smaller than ours and they had over double our staff and produced the same amount of content, so to me, it's a logical business decision. We were sent this note from our publisher, which I think everyone will get a kick out of.

At the Austin American-Statesmen we have been touched by the same national trends affecting the newspaper industry and we are also experiencing softness in the advertising market. However, we want you to know that - at least for now – our local situation is different.

With your help, we at the Statesman have always managed our costs and operated as efficiently as possible. This mode of operation has served us well in boom times and it continues to serve us well during difficult periods. We have long understood the reality that in order to accomplish the many good things we do for our community, we must be a financially strong and independent business.

At this time, the Statesman is not planning a similar action to the one occurring in Palm Beach, but if the situation worsens we would have to face a similar reality. Of course, we can never know the future but we can make the following promise with pride: We will keep our employees informed of changes and will behave consistent with our Cox values.

The fact is the American-Statesman acted quickly when we first saw the economy begin to slow and we are well on the way to transforming the company for the future. It is our policy to seize every opportunity to minimize costs, and at the same time, invest in the growth areas that will carry us forward. We have confidence that this strategy is the correct one for our current situation.

What we need from each associate is your cooperation, engagement, and creativity as we chart our course. Your involvement is critical. With your help, we have a long and bright future ahead of us. If you have specific questions, please contact either your department head or one of us.

Sincerely,
Mike Laosa
Publisher
Michael Vivio
Associate Publisher

Oh yeah, did I mention that they also are in a competitive market? I mean, the closest thing we have to competition in Austin is the Chronicle and that's an alt weekly. Luckily, the Statesman is quite a staple in Austin, unlike in Palm Beach where they had the Miami Herald to compete with.

The whole business desk is flipping the hell out about it. I mean, why watch a train crash? Why not just try to make yourself indispensible? That's what I'm going for. Though, maybe it's time I found a new line of work. Thank God I can edit video.