Journalists get laid (off)

9: 33 a.m. A text from Sara: did u get the call? you still work here if u didnt

No, I didn't get the call. But for the rest of the day every time one of my cell phones rang, I'd dread looking at the caller ID, dread seeing the office number come up. It never did.

By the time I got into work nearing 3:30 p.m. for my Monday Night Cops shift, they'd already made most of the calls and sent out most of the e-mails to the editorial department. We lost 33 reporters, photographers and editors yesterday, 99 companywide, all three of the newspaper's bureaus and a few publications--a move management says was forced by the lawsuit and bad economic times.

There was this morguish air in the newsroom as we slowly found out who they'd fired. I half-heartedly made my calls to area law enforcement to check if anything major happened and even they sounded apologetic, speaking in low tones like someone had died. A few sources called to make sure I was OK. OK was relative. You can never be OK watching your colleagues with careers, families and bills packing up their space and leaving for good.

After less than an hour, I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed the scanner and a notepad and headed outside for the picnic benches to get some fresh air, to jot down my feelings and to escape the tense atmosphere. A few reporters were working and interviewing inside, but it was muted, as if they were, like me, afraid to talk too loudly out of respect. There was definitely none of the usual banter and laughter.

But outside was no escape. I had a clear view of the parking lot and my former co-workers carting out their things in boxes, distraught friends holding farewell vigils at the trunks of their cars. Cars were leaving; it was like 5 p.m. at 4:30. Other reporters were filing in from the bureaus, a little uncertain and dazed, for an editorial meeting at 5. They didn't tell us anything we didn't already know: It was one of the worst days in the history of the newspaper.

Today will be chaos as the bureau reporters shift space to our main--and now only--office. Many will have to face their own logistical issues having to commute as much as 90 minutes now to get to work. I won't be there for much of today. I'll be at a City Council workshop and a multimedia assignment at City Hall in now-bureauless Palm Coast. Management shifted beats around a bit, so in addition to covering city government, I'm also now the youth affairs reporter. It will be a while before things settle down again.

By the end of the day, those of us who'd survived the cuts were drained. But there was also this air of relief. We'd made it. I've read but been able to ignore our negative public leaving venomous comments at the bottom of our stories today.

We lost family yesterday; some people don't get that.


Photo "Packing up the office desk" courtesy Corbis