A message from publisher Ellen Leifeld: Covering up the wrong of the layoffs at The Tennessean; newspaper is in sharp quality and quanity decline

Here is a message Tennessean publisher Ellen Leifeld sent to the poor employees who have to work under her incredibly poor leadership yet the newspaper's profit margin of more than 20 percent is not enough to keep these people on the job.

She can't even get the year right for her message.

Dec. 3, 2009
> To: Staff
> Fr: Ellen Leifeld
> Re: Layoffs
> Staff: This has been a very painful week for everyone.

> By the end of the day today, we will have completed the layoffs at The
> Tennessean, the Middle Tennessee weeklies, Tennessean.com and the magazine
> division. We have eliminated 92 positions - 67 people are laid off and 25 of the
> positions are currently vacant.

> Most of the department heads are meeting with their staffs later this afternoon
> to tell them about the people laid off in their departments. Tomorrow, I will
> meet with all employees who wish to attend one of two meetings in the cafeteria
> - one at 10 a.m. and one at 5 p.m.

> At those meetings, I will share the names of everyone who was laid off. Also,
> I'll share information about product changes and other measures to be taken to
> reduce costs. As you know, about one-third of our cost reductions will come from
> layoffs. The remainder will come from other changes.

> Below is the story that we will be posting about the layoffs:

> The Tennessean, its magazine division and its affiliated Middle Tennessee weekly newspapers eliminated 92 positions this week.

> Of those, 25 were vacant. Sixty-seven people were laid off. Among the
> reductions, 29 are news positions at the newspaper, Tennessean.com, the weeklies
> and the magazine division. Four of the 29 news positions are currently open.

> The actions result from a decision in October by the Gannett Company's
> Community Publishing Division to reduce its nationwide workforce by about 10
> percent. The reduction was forced by the deepening national recession and the
> historic transformation of the news and information industry. With these
> actions, Gannett joins a long list of media companies that have been forced to
> make major staff reductions for the same reasons.

>The Tennessean has already changed many of its approaches to gathering and
> distributing information in both print and digital forms. However, the immediate
> economic downturn has forced additional reductions, company officials said.>
>

Now for the truth. Gannett is an incredily poorly run company at the top -- with the exception of USA Today publisher Craig Moon -- that promotes poor managers like Leifeld and Editor Mark Silverman to leadership positions. But they don't lose their jobs. Good people do.

These supposed leaders don't know the communities they are supposed to serve and don't care to. It is so wrong that staffers with families at Christmastime are the one to suffer.