Trib Arts Cuts: the Masses Respond
“It would be one thing if all the theaters got together and said, we don’t like you changing the page,” Sertich told us after the letters had been delivered. “But if thousands of readers take the time to send letters saying, we don’t like the changes either–we know for a fact we sent 15,000 letters over, and we hear several thousand letters are over there already.”
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“I think that’s very unlikely,” he said. “I don’t think the status quo is as attractive an option as doing something, but I don’t know what the something will be.”
Mariotti hasn’t worked since November, but he had so much comp time piled up he’s still drawing a weekly paycheck. The terms offered him long before he met with Radler and Wade were to come back as a reporter or not come back at all. Radler didn’t bring new terms. But since the meeting Mariotti’s heard from deputy managing editor Rick Jaffe. “He proposed this job for me. It’s a pretty damn good job. They’re calling it special-projects writer or something like that. I think it involves going to major events, doing these long projects they want to win awards with. But the fact is, it’s a demotion. It’s a real nice job, but it’s not a column.”
When Winship says the press he really means its pundits, and fear of humiliation does keep these warriors flying in tight formation close to the ground. But not even pundits are paid to report tomorrow’s news. As a wise old editor might have said, “If it’s a good enough story it’ll keep until it happens.”
But even though vast profits are expected of the Tribune, it hasn’t been told to lay people off to get them. Newsroom jobs are still safe there, even the ones held down by the living dead. And that’s something.
