Busy week for LANG union

The good...

Sorry for the lag in updates, this week has been crazy!

Lots of news to report. We'd like to welcome Keith Higginbotham to the team. Keith is a former Press-Telegram writer and all around smart guy. He'll be working to help facilitate communications between the units, and coordinate our various projects, community outreach, and other activities.

Keith and the rest of the team spent this week with representatives from the Bay Area News Group (BANG), who came down to learn a little about our operations, and share their insights on organizing within the MediaNews empire. As always strength in numbers is the name of the game, and we're building a closer relationship with our northern counterparts so everyone working in MNG will have the best, most comprehensive information and tools available to them.
Karl Fischer, Jeremiah Oshan, and Pia Basudev spent time with Lesley Phillips, Keith, and me as we visited LANG properties, spoke with members, and leanred more about the issues facing Southern California journalists.

The bad...

As you've probably heard, the buyouts have been accepted and implemented. We'd like to extend our best wishes to Carol Bidwell, Alan McCabe, Melinda Kough, Sharon Kaplan, and copy desk chief Ed Richeson. We understand that the decision to move on was not made lightly, and we hope they find success wherever life takes them.

...and the even worse

In addition to the buyouts, the DN is also implementing layoffs. Television critic David Kronke, photographer Andy Holzman, and web producer Julio Morales were let go this week, and we have information that more layoffs are scheduled soon.