Back on the 13th, a NYT story, “New Orleans Struggles With Latest Storm, Newspaper Layoffs” by Campbell Robertson, with this passage:
In New Orleans and across the state of Alabama on Tuesday, as part of a basic restructuring of the news business at four papers owned by Advance Publications, scores of employees walked into one-on-one meetings and walked out 10 minutes later with severance packages. They included advertising employees, copy editors, press operators, crime reporters, photographers and graphic artists.
The Web site al.com, the online site for The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and The Mobile Press-Register, reported that 400 employees in Alabama would “experience an employment loss.”
The Birmingham News had a newsroom of 102 going into Tuesday; by the end of the day 61 were gone. The Times-Picayune laid off more than 200 people, or nearly a third of its overall staff.
I’ll say a bit about the substance of the story, but first a note on the remarkably indirect euphemism for be laid off: experience an employment loss.
