Argus Leader fires two more reporters.

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19 thoughts on “Argus Leader fires two more reporters.”

  2. welcome to the my world… I don’t know how it goes in other industries but as a nurse working in multiple facilities over the years, furloughs of a shift here or there were common. After 6 weeks of Mckennan cutting 2 of 3 12-hour shifts a week I changed jobs. That was the worst one. A nursing home cut everybody’s hours by 15 minutes per 8 hour shift if the resident census dropped by 2. Adjustments of work hours are commonplace. This is apparently news to the news media.

    1. i find this to be abusive and exploitive. it is more honest to cut staff and funnel more work to the better performers, than to jerk everyone around on hours and mix austerity with some weird business alchemy. is the end game meant to be the grooming of a labor pool that will put up with various deprivations as a trade-off to pursuing their career goals, thus taking up the slack or experiencing the pain meant for the owners, stockholders, risk-takers? media isn’t a hostage of insurance companies and government like health care, this is risk-takers kicking the reality can down the road and spreading their short term risk-pain to their workers.

      1. enquirer, I remember when “share the work” was a tenant of the Ladies’ Garment Union. Nobody got laid off, if there wasn’t enough work to keep everybody employed full-time, they would accept furloughs, have their hours cut. Perhaps this was more readily accepted in a female -dominated business. I didn’t like having my hours cut, but I can see that historically, going back to an era when if a woman sought employment outside the home, it was because she had no father, husband or brother supporting her, so she would be considered something akin to a charity case.

        1. i did a rethinking along these lines after i made my post. a private non union news shop is a bit different from a garment factory. the middle manager is who gets pinched in these situations – responsible to turn out a product – holding their own idea of important quality benchmarks for long term company health – fighting for adequate staffing and morale. they’re the ones taking up the slack created by the cost saving. i just hate seeing this kind of thing as a rule.

  6. Question — am I understanding that the Argus Leader has only 9 reporters on staff now? Wow. That is just stunning. At some point, do they just shut it down? And journalism is backfilled with specialty publications like Dakota Scout and tv news?

  7. If they weren’t such a libbie rag they’d sell more papers and be able to pay reporters more.

    1. I’ve said it before – be aware of your customers. Their income is/was derived from sales of advertisement, but when your only goal is report everything one sided for ever and ever, guess what happens? Readership/Circulation drops off. I quit reading the Argus when they were so pro-Daschle during the Daschle/Thune campaign. They own everything – good luck with your Journalism degree. Not much compassion from me.

  8. Not a great time to be a small business owner today, Multi-National Pricks are taking over all of us, and if they want, they will just ruin all us small business. My dad started our repair shop i 1979, gas was $0.89 a gallon, and rent was $500 a month, now we pay $5 a gallon, and RENT is $3000 a month. 40 years ago, we charge $45/hour labor, now we charge $110 per our workign 7 days a week to pay bills, and cant find good help. IT SUCKS. “WE” are being over run in SOuth Dakota by Multi National pricks.

    I was trying to buy and sell used cars, but how can I, all my customers want cars for 1000 to $1500 and how can I make money of all big dealers are bidding people up that I ave to pay $2000 a car? The little guy is out of the business, and you politicians favor BIG MONETY and Multi National fast food junk and dont worry about the little guy anymore

  9. There’s a difference between fired and laid off. I highly encourage you to reach out to me if you have questions or want to contextualize what you post.

    – Shelly Conlon, News Director/Argus Leader

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