Circuit City Shorts Out - Cynicism Survives

34 thousand people will be out of work as Circuit City closes down its stores and shuts off the lights for good. A trip around Blogworld shows that while there's a lot of sympathy for the workers, there's very little to spare for Circuit City and its corporate officers.

A year ago, this was posted on Cynical-C's blog: http://www.cynical-c.com/?p=7078

No time to read? Let me sum it up for you.

In 2007, Circuit City laid off 3400 workers, effectively immediately, and replaced them with people who were paid significantly lower wages. The company targeted its most experienced and best paid employees for replacement and said so plainly. Those workers, the company said, were making more than the industry average. One study showed they were making about 51 cents an hour more than their counterparts at other stores - big, big bucks.

But to be fair, company CEO Philip Schoonover makes less than the industry standard; according to Forbes, he made 2.17 million dollars while comparable executives made 4.25 million.

Circuit City told those 3400 workers they could reapply for their old jobs, at minimum wage with no benefits, after they'd been on unemployment for ten weeks.

The Circuit City Slaughter, as one analyst called it, won the title of "Most Cynical Corporate Move Ever" from one industry watcher.

So after cutting its legs off, Circuit City is now stabbing itself in the head. But the 34 thousand people who worked there are the ones who will bleed.

What About The News?

The Trib is in trouble. The Times is preparing to mortgage its Manhattan offices. Newspapers are cutting staff, cutting corners and cutting their wrists.

It seems inevitable. The Upstart Internet, the blog, the online magazine all offer the news for free and right at our fingertips whenever we want it.

Take it from an insider - when the papers go, the news will suffer. As someone who's worked for an online paper, a television network affiliate and local and regional radio, I can say with authority that the papers are where most broadcast news get the stories they cover. The other media don't have the time, they don't have the staff - they've never been able to do the in-depth, investigative work that newspapers do with the same regularity that the papers offer.

It's not that broadcast journalists aren't capable. They just aren't given the time. How can you break a story when you've got two others to file that day while you're investigating it? Some broadcast journalists do more than two - I remember doing as many as five in one day when I was a young, energetic TV reporter.

Even now I try to break stories before they make the paper - but by the time I've spent two weeks squeezing in interviews between the daily stories, I'm generally reading about my story in the paper.

Newspapers break the stories. Broadcast news follows up and expands the scope. That's how it's been forever. And once the newspapers are gone, the base of the news foundation will be gone, too. The other news media will adjust, but it'll take time. And the news will be pretty pitiful stuff for awhile. They'll all be cannibalizing each other's stories and fighting for exclusives while news is breaking just a mile down the road. There won't be the staff to cover it.

The trouble isn't just hitting newspapers. NPR announced it's cancelling two programs and laying off 64 employees. Watch the cuts continue in the broadcast world. Good thing Wolf and John re-upped with CNN. They're going to be needed if the rest of the staff ends up with pink slips. Perhaps the CNN i-Report idea is going to be the newsroom of the future. Grab your iPhone, get some pictures and send it to the news. Voila. You're a journalist.

Just remember - it's who, what, when, where, why and how. And never say somebody did the deed until they're convicted. We don't want our citizen journalists to get sued for libel.