When the newsroom is empty at night, and there’s one employee left, do you know what that last ink stained wretch out does to relieve the frustrations of working at a corporate profit machine?

How about yelling the worst of the swear words at the top of their lungs, letting it echo through the empty spaces under the desks, past the Pulitzers, and behind the computer terminals, where the high speed cooling fans breathe the epithet in and spin it past the silicon processors?

And that barbaric yawp feels so good, the editor shouts it again, in case it failed to reach the water fountains at the end of the hallway. Such is the bitterness that permeates the newspaper industry today, where corporate owned dailies promote profit at the tragic price of public service.

When I read the two latest job cut memos from you, Mr. Carver and Mr. Teutsch, I was frustrated by the departure of another 20 solid people at the Courant, many of these old timers with institutional knowledge. The longer they’ve been there, the more expensive they are to keep around, the deeper the loss.

It begs the question: how can the Courant continue to call itself a community institution if keeps throwing good local people overboard? At what point does the community have a say in how a regional asset like the Courant is run?

How do we release our hometown newsgathering operations from Wall Street’s domination? When I bump into Courant people at local parks and watering holes, I hear them yearn for a billionaire owner to scoop up the Courant when the Tribune inevitably spins its properties off, rather than another media chain that will demand better performance, and further crush morale.

While I have met you but once, Mr. Carver, you seemed a nice enough man. I took my moment of introduction to explain to you the importance of the now-defunct MetroBridge, the teen supplement and literacy-training tool I edited but which fell victim to stockholder expectations.

While I had hopes, like many other, that your leadership would restore the Courant to its revolutionary role in Connecticut’s historical fabric, I understood implicitly what the Tribune intended when it brought an out-of-towner like yourself here.

My relationship with you, Cliff, goes deeper. I worked under you, and respect your values as a newsman. I know you well enough to send a congratulatory email when you were promoted to executive editor, and to laugh at your self-deprecating response.

I hope to continue working with you both on youth journalism projects in the future, because as leaders of the state’s largest newspaper, you both have responsibility in this special business to be stewards for its future.

I understand that this letter may not be taken in the best spirit, and I may be jeopardizing the opportunity to cooperate by airing my grievances in so public a forum, but as a citizen, I have a duty to demand an explanation. How are these job cuts good for the community?

Please don’t tell me the newspaper will fail if we don’t pare the newsroom staff further, because I read the stock pages and see that the Tribune extracts comfortable profit margins from 285 Broad Street.

Your memos describing the latest round of belt-tightening read as cold and heartless pieces of corporate literature, certainly not the warm narratives one sought out the Northeast Magazine for.

For the first time in my life, I found myself wishing I was in Los Angeles. If I were there, I could root for the Los Angeles Times, where former publisher Jeffrey Johnson and executive editor Dean Baquet together summoned the courage to tell the Tribune what the slot man only shouts at the empty newsroom.

Johnson and Baquet were fired because they said the LA Times couldn’t take any more job cuts and not be a joke. I fear this latest round of cuts, without a peep from you both, may cast the Courant as worse than laughable.

The newspaper industry wrings its hands that people aren’t buying the paper anymore, perhaps it is because people are bothered by the massive cutbacks and the outsourcing. Who wants to read the Sunday Courant without Northeast?

Connecticut and Thomas Green’s Courant grew up together, they threw off the yolk of corporate colonialism together, and now, the Courant seems the instrument of oppression. How can we justify that the Courant’s call center is in the Philippines?

Poynter’s Joe Grimm has suggested the copy desk may move to India next. Yet Hartford has the highest unemployment rate in the state of Connecticut.

Hearty Nutmeggers once saved rags to make sure the Courant had enough raw materials to manufacture paper to print itself. Today, the Courant spits people out like ragged refugees.

Photographers John Long and Tony Bacewicz might have enough time in system to retire. Yet how do we replace their skills and institutional memory? We don’t.

And what about religion writer Frances Grandy-Taylor, who I worked closely with at MetroBridge? A 21-year veteran, Taylor refused a buyout, offered to her impersonally by email a few months back. But she couldn’t duck this swing of the budget ax.

What happened to Michael Regan was no less disrespectful in my eyes. Regan served more than 30 years at the Courant, first as reporter, then for the last 20 years as an editor, steering the stories that brought down Gov. John G. Rowland and managing giant enterprises like the 2006 election coverage.

Two days after Election Day this year, the Courant demoted him to reporter. If I were him, I would never write another story at the Courant.

How is it possible that we never hear of job cuts at the Manchester Journal-Inquirer, the New London Day or the Waterbury Republican? While none of those institutions are perfect, they are locally-owned entities that recognize the value of community connections.

After Bob Veillette, the managing editor of the Waterbury paper, suffered a massive stroke in April 2006, the Papes, who own the Republican, kept him on staff. Among the many reasons my parents subscribe to the Republican over the Courant is that my late grandfather taught Veillette biology at Naugatuck High School. Veillette mentored me as a young reporter.

Thursday, Nov. 16, the Republican hosted a fundraiser to help defray Veillette’s tremendous medical expenses. They only recently removed his name from the masthead. Yet the Courant didn’t even let Frances Taylor finish her last two stories?

People often describe news reporters as hardened cynics, perhaps because many reporters feign no surprise at the range of human behavior. After spending most of my life in journalism, I think that people who work in the daily miracle are eternal optimists.

The attempt at communicating the human condition – the amazing heights of heroism and the depths of depravity – is in itself an act of hope. Yet when newsies who endure the hard hours and the low pay for public service feel betrayed for the profit motive by their own people, I find it forgivable to curse the empty newsroom, and to demand answers and accountability from those whom abide by decisions they must absolutely, positively know to be wrong.

P.S. - And don't forget to look at what Jon Friedman over at MarketWatch from DowJones says about the Tribune buying Centerfielder Alfonso Soriano for $136 million for the Cubs while cutting newspaper staff everywhere.

11/22/06

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The Hartford Courant HQ seen from behind the Armory

285 Broad Street, the Hartford Courant's headquarters, seemingly sits on the wrong side of the tracks.

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An Open Letter to Hartford Courant Publisher Stephen Carver & Executive Editor Cliff Teutsch