Westword’s Michael Roberts updates from last week’s first report, confirming the layoff of many copy editors on staff at the Denver Post. With some vocal pushback from affected reporters:
According to an attendee, the layoffs will go into effect at the end of May. In the meantime, copy editors can apply for the positions that will remain. We’re told seniority will be considered when it comes to retention…
[Post] heath-care specialist Michael Booth wrote, “We would be losing a vital layer of journalism and a dedicated and talented group of journalists. What distinguishes us is accuracy and fairness. Let’s not pretend those values won’t be eroded by this move. I hope The Post will realize how ridiculous and self-defeating it is to add so many vice presidents while subtracting so many actual journalists.”
Added feature writer Claire Martin, “Thank you to every copy editor who asked questions that made a story better, more insightful, more accurate, more broad-minded. We need you far more than we need another layer of white guys in bespoke suits.”
Read the full statement from the Denver Newspaper Guild at Westword:
We understand the company needs flexibility to make decisions quickly, and we have afforded the company that flexibility with a labor agreement that allows the company to change newsroom operations and reduce the workforce. However, the Guild has serious doubts that the decision by management to slash the ranks of copy editors will result in a more efficient newsgathering process. Instead, we believe it will result in a loss of credibility as more mistakes and errors appear in print and online.
The Denver Post’s reputation is at stake.
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All good writers and editors know, a good copy editor should be the last one off the ship. They’re the captains who lead from behind. They’re the ghosts in the machine.
Here’s to the copy editors!
Michael Booth of the Post wrote: “What distinguishes us is accuracy and fairness.”
I also think that the decline of the Post is sad and that the Post has been accurate and fair in large part. However, the Post has had its shortcomings.
In this editorial, “First Let the Court Rule,” the Denver Post encouraged the Colorado General Assembly to request an interrogative from the Colorado Supreme Court, to identify the legal boundaries for pension reform in Colorado. The Colorado Legislature ignored that advice and with the help of public union lobbyists and Colorado PERA took fully-vested pension rights from Colorado PERA retirees.
In a later editorial, the Denver Post states “We never thought the lawsuit had merit.”
Support for the taking of fully-vested, contracted, accrued pension benefits (that were earned over a 30 year period) from the elderly in Colorado falls short of Michael Booth’s claim of “fairness.”
Yesterday, a comment was made in regard to the involvement of the Colorado Education Association in lobbying for the enactment of Senate Bill 10-001, arguing that the involvement of the CEA demonstrated that “integrity has taken a backseat to expediency” for that organization. When it comes to the honoring of contractual obligations, the Denver Post has revealed itself to be in this camp . . . the camp that would breach contracts for expediency.
In the words of the Colorado Supreme Court, Denver Police Pension and Relief Board, Colorado Supreme Court, 1961,
“When conditions are satisfied for retirement . . . . at that time retirement pay becomes a vested right of which the person entitled thereto cannot be deprived; it has ripened into a full contractual obligation. Whether it be in the field of sports or in the halls of the legislature it is not consonant with American traditions of fairness and justice to change the ground rules in the middle of the game.”
What can you do? Go to the saveperacola.com website, click on the “Support” tab, and send them a contribution. Call or e-mail every PERA member and retiree you know and ask them send support. Call your public employee union representatives and ask them how they can stand idly by while the Colorado Legislature attempts to breach its contracts with public employees. Colleagues of our public sector union officials across the country are aggressively defending the pension rights of their union members. What has happened in Colorado is truly bizarre.
To follow developments in the Colorado pension theft lawsuit sign up as a Friend of Save Pera Cola on Facebook.
Have your friends sign up as Friends of Save Pera Cola. Copy this post and e-mail it to PERA members and retirees you know.
If Jesus returned tomorrow at the head of an army of 10,000 angels, you’d figure out a way to spin it as proof that Pera is Imperiled.
On the other hand, the Post would run the story of the Lord’s return on page 12 under a one-column head, with the first 11 pages devoted to the fact that Peyton Manning burped, leading to speculation about what he might have had for dinner.
Algae Montrose posted that he returned now because of the injustice done to PERA.
Wait, that is wrong. It should be s/he posted THAT HE RETURNED NOW BECAUSE OF THE INJUSTICE DONE TO PERA!
No, that’s not right. It should be THAT HE RETURNED NOW BECAUSE OF THE INJUSTICE DONE TO PERA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Who will go first? The Denver Post? Or Zsa Zsa Gabor?
For that matter, is The Post still alive?
don’t know about the Post
if only DP accepted MMJ ads then they’d be rolling innit
Robin Gibb
Hugo Chavez
Margaret Thatcher
Fidel Castro
Billy Graham
Death knell sounds for DP but the Detroit News still lives? that would be sad …
Thanks, Post!
And if any of you know Camtasia too, please email me.
The Denver Post replied “Plead bee patent wild wee improv our produce.”
I think that alone shows it’ll be ok.
You get two many, but that was funney.
That sounds like a juicy part of this story, too…
This would be a fine time for a new alternative to rise and put forth some relevant reporting for Denver and the Front Range.
It would not be hard to top the regurgitation and drama so common in the DP. Real news that allows readers to know what is coming would be welcome, after so many years of only hearing about the negative news that has passed.
The DP loses relevance everyday!