Roster of those departing the St. Petersburg Times so far...

*(UPDATED - 8/15/08)

For those of us working in the newspaper industry nowadays, it's an awful new reality: Watching for the latest retirement, buyout, layoff, departure news.

So far, just by perusing the internal list of people who have announced their retirement or decided to leave the paper for other reasons, I've tallied close to 30 people who have left or are leaving the Times newsroom since our "enhanced retirement" incentives were announced in late May. 

Since some readers have asked -- and the official deadline for applying for the buyout passed in late July -- I decided to post a list of recent exits from the Times here, so people can see who's headed out the door. While some of these names are people taking advantage of the early retirement incentives offered by the Times, not all of them are. Some people just happen to be leaving us now, others have used the unrest in the industry to rethink their careers.

Longtime readers may recognize some names: business columnist Helen Huntley (below), Homes Editor Judy Stark, former food critic Chris Sherman, longtime writer and editor Dave Ballingrud, Pulitzer Prize winner and editorial board member Jack Reed. Times executives tell me they will likely release total figures on who has taken the retirement offer -- extended to all staffers over 50 with more than five years' service -- later this month.

Helen offers a few graphs on her departure on her own blog here. The blog Talking Biz News has a funny quote from departing business writer tom Zucco, whose work on the state'es insurance crisis has been invaluable, on their blog here.

The changes at the Times don't just include departures. Editorial board deputy editor Tim Nickens will become editor of editorials when the current editor, Phil Gailey, retires at the end of this month. Business editor Bob Trigaux will soon return to writing, resuming his three-times a week business column, while business reporter Kris Hundley moves to our investigative team.

Of course, we're not the only news organization in the area to experience such losses. Media General's Tampa Tribune and WFLA-Ch. 8 has seen names such as longtime culture writer Kurt Loft and medical editor Irene Maher depart as well, with more to come. Makes you wonder how the face of local journalism will change, once so many experienced journalists on both sides of the bay have gone.

Click the link below to see my unofficial list of who has recently left or is leaving the Times:

Tom Zucco

Bob Jenkins

Ruth Walsh

Ingrid Kohler

Linda Cole

Chris Sherman

Judy Stark

Lee Freeman

Joe Barberis

Mike Moscardini

Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler

Barbara Fredricksen

Deborah Block

Bill Coats

Helen Huntley

Chuin-Wei Yap

Nick Johnson

Lynn Seelye

Scott Long

Chris Cosenza

Jack Reed

Carrie Weimar

Abbie VanSickle

Tamara El-Khoury

Catherine Shoichet

Jessica Parker Gilbert

Jeff Webb

David Ballingrud

Claire Giglio

Chris Cosdon

Maddie Bora

Scott DeMuesy
Mack Goethe
Mike Pease
Ken Helle

Jan Wilcox

Comments

[zxcvzv zcxvzcvzv]

How 'bout a list of non news staff? Who cares about the news depatment!

[Gina Vivinetto]

Holy hell!
Who's going to write the paper?

[Gregory A. Perez]

Good lord.

sm re: last paragraph point well received.

[SM]

sm I agree with you that cutbacks happen in other industries all the time. I still feel for print journalists who've suddenly found themselves jobless-- just as I would anyone who gets laid off. Not like they can just get a job with the thriving competition when the entire industry is suffering.

Life after journalism IS different. Hopefully, after the initial shock or anger of getting laid off dissipates, some of them will be as happy as I was years ago to discover the variety of rewarding job opportunities for people with journalism backgrounds.

To 12:02 - new and fresh doesn't necessarily translate into quality work. However, I do agree with your call for character and reporters who seek the truth. But those qualities aren't relegated solely to the young.

This is the INFORMATION AGE you are information, if you can't make it work, what is the problem? You have to change your what you are doing?

[sm]

I left journalism in 2000 (after 22 years) for the Internet "boom," and have since worked for 3 different technology/media companies. At one point, our 50-person software-technology staff was cut overnight by 8 people, with no notice. Boom, people gone, and those jobs had to be picked up by those of us left behind. Cutbacks DO happen in other industries all the time....print journalism isn't the only profession in a constant state of transformation. Advice: Keep your skills updated, keep all options open, don't burn bridges, never look back. Things will never be what they once were, but there IS life after journalism. It's just different, that's all.

New young minds, that can only be good. I hope they court people from the Orlando Sentinel. Do they have that much larger of a market share than our area because their quality in reporting is outstanding? We need hungry journalist who want the truth and won't print it unless it is. Character in individuals would be great. I see this as only good. People are not reading this publication, there is obviously a reason. Clean the Old out and see what you can do with the new and fresh.

[SM]

Sorry for the double post. A page popped up saying there was an error with TypePad so I didn't see the first post.

[SM]

I no longer live in Tampa. Or Florida for that matter. The town where I live now is quite small. Our newspaper just laid off a good percentage of their staff too. It will definitely change the way news is gathered and reported here.

To address dreaming's post-- when factories closed down or a slew of tech jobs disintegrated with the bursting bubble, it affected entire communities/regions and often had national impact. And the media always covered it. So why shouldn't they cover these large layoffs in their own field? This isn't just 'turnover.'

Grant Parker: seems to me that when covering the massive layoffs and deaths of other industries (manufacturing in the USA) the media wasn't just 'crying' about it. So it does sound somewhat callous to say they just want to cry about this. Please remember these are real people who are now unemployed. Eric's list of names would have hopefully helped demonstrate that fact to you. REAL names. REAL people. NOT just numbers.

Furthermore, if you think these large layoffs won't ultimately impact the quality of what you read, you're deluding yourself. When seasoned professionals who have news judgment are shown the door, who do the inexperienced turn to for help?

I wonder what types of things will slip through the cracks because fewer people will be handling more responsibilities.

Scott, I hope you're already landing on your feet.

[Scott Long]

One of the departed staffers here. Interesting discussion. I'm usually in the camp of "newspapers talk about themselves too much," but in this case, I'm siding with Eric. The loss of all this talent, especially the folks with much longer careers and more established relationships with readers than I had, will certainly be felt in this community, which respects its newspaper more than any community I've ever lived in. I hope the Times remains an important part of our community's discourse long into the future.

[Eric Deggans]

You make a good point about departures which preceded our announcement of the retirement offer. But I deliberately chose to only tally those announcements which came after the buyout offer was revealed, because that's when the paper officially acted to get a large group of staffers to consider leaving the paper for financial reasons alone...

[Johan]

Don't forget Andrew Skerritt, Scott Barancik, Paul Swider, S.I. Rosenbaum, etc.

[Eric Deggans]

I love the blogosphere's penchant for nitpickery.

Ten percent is unprecedented for our newsroom. The levels of job loss in general across the newspaper industry -- where many newspapers are cutting much more than 10 percent -- is also unprecedented.

My point was that this is not some tweaking of newspapers that journalists are squealing about. It's a singular change in staffing which will affect news reporting at all levels across all platforms...

[Robert Casey]

Unprecedented in news industry? 10%? You haven't been paying attention. That's a fairly low number for the amount of layoffs/attrition at most American newspapers the past year or two. The San Jose Mercury News staff, for one, is down 62%

[Grant Parker]

Didn't say I didn't care. I was just making an observation, sir.

[Grant Parker]

Didn't say I didn't care. I was just making an observation, sir.

[Eric Deggans]

I seem to remember newspapers carrying losts of stories about factory workers and laborers losing good middle class jobs in the '70s and '80s when those industries downsized.

And i think there's real, potent questions about what happens to our news infrastructure if reporters' ranks drop too low.

And why in the world would you read a blog about media if you didn't care about what happens in the industry?

[Grant Parker]

I concur with the first post, ie, industries expand and shrink all the time. It's only the practitioners of the news business who act as if this has never happened elsewhere. And, oh! how they like to cry about it.

[idiotwind]

hey dreaming, wake up. this is not turnover, it's decimation. as advertisers abandon the medium, newsroom managers are busily rearranging deck chairs on their Titanics.

[Eric Deggans]

The good news is that those guys left voluntarily to start their own venture, a magazine named Ante Up! So you'll have some great content coming from them very soon...

[Ante Up Nation!]

Ante Up! Nation will certainly miss Scott Long and Chris Consenza. Their blog and podcast was top notch!

[Eric Deggans]

I don't agree. I haven't listed every departure, because some haven't been publicly announced yet, but 30 people totals close to 10 percent of our newsroom.

This is a level of departures which is unprecedented for our newsroom and for the industry in general.

And these people will not necessarily be replaced. The whole point of offering a retirement incentive is to lower our staffing levels. And as I noted, we're not just losing older staffers -- some younger people are choosing to move on as well.

[dreaming]

this kind of turnover happens all the time in big industries outside journalism. yet journalists love to carry on about just how things may not survive the loss etc etc just because a few people quit or get laid off.

it's sad to see people go. but it's silly to think they can't be replaced. they can and will, or else life will go on without them.