John Archibald's unpublished column
It was originally published by Kyle Whitmire on his Facebook page, but it is reposted here for those who could not access it there.
John Archibald's unpublished column It’s hard to look at Ginny MacDonald today and not hear The Neville Brothers in my head, singing their version of that old hymn, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”Undertaker, undertaker, Won’t you please drive real slow? That Miss Crazy, that you carry, I sure hate to see her go. I hate to see her go. Plus, I want to see the bumper snicker on her hearse. What does it say? Reports of my death have been greatly exacerbated. No. Ginny Mac — Birmingham News transportation diva and Driver’s Side columnist — is not exactly dead. Not to you, anyway. But today is her last day as a full-timer in the newsroom. She’ll keep writing a weekly column on Mondays, but no more front page stories from her about bridge collapses, speed traps or trooper madness. Why do I tell you this? Because you buy the paper, most of you, and you know Ginny. You have a right to know that she, like so many experienced and trusted news gatherers, has taken a company buyout. Today is a dark day at The News. It marks the last day not only for Ginny, but for health writer Anna Velasco. By May veteran political writer Tom Gordon — with more stored memory than an iPad — will be gone. So will young Erin Stock. It’s not just a News thing, it’s a news thing. They tell us, in fact, that our readership is good and ad revenue is rebounding. But technology and economics have worn on profitability in all news operations. Ours is no exception. But it hurts. In all, since buyouts were offered in 2008, The News has lost more than 500 years of reporting experience. Decorated reporter Dave Parks — who pretty much discovered “Gulf War Syndrome” — went. State Editor Glenn Stephens, who could pilot a newsroom through a storm with an even keel, is gone. Food writer Jo Ellen O’Hara left us, as did outdoor writer Mike Bolton. We’ve lost 32 people in the newsroom. Twenty were reporters, the real workhorses. That may look small next to losses at the Raleigh News & Observer, which has seen its news staff fall from 250 to 115, or the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which cut 93 news staffers in one chunk last year. But it hurts. If there is good news, it is that The News still has 125 people working to gather the news in Alabama’s largest newsroom. Still, we mourn the losses to the News family. We mourn the loss to readers, to this community, to the republic. As legendary editor Gene Roberts told a group of journalists last week in New York, journalism job cuts are more than economic news. They’re a matter of public interest. “This not just a problem for journalism, this is a problem for democracy,” he said. “What a democratic society does not know, it cannot act upon.” He is right. You need to know. Think of what you know of your government, and try to separate it from the news. Alabama’s most notable corruptions — Don Siegelman, Guy Hunt, Larry Langford, Jeff Germany, the two-year college system — all started with reporters on the ground. Issues such as the county’s bond debt and crime in neighborhoods bubble to light in the press. Those of us left in the newsroom will keep digging. For readers. For the republic. For ourselves, for Ginny and Dave and Anna. We believe there will always be a need, and a market, for news. There better be. News, as Roberts put it, is “democracy’s food.” “If we are going to come up with solutions, then democratic society has to understand that there is a problem,” he said. It’s not just our problem. 
Three things strike me about this whole episode.
First, The Birmingham News routinely reports on layoffs, buyouts and whatnot at businesses throughout Alabama, ostensibly because those cuts impact our communities at large.
As Archibald argues so well, the buyouts at the News have an important impact on Birmingham, and yet, the News does not see fit to report this important story.
That's hypocrisy, plain and simple.
Second, the News brass seems to have been under the impression that this never would see the light of day, that they are still the arbiters of news. They think they still control the spigot.
That's not the world we live in anymore. I can distribute information faster with my phone than they can with that greasy beast of a machine on Fifth Avenue North. If they don't realize that, then they're in real trouble.
Third, what kind of idiot management makes a boneheaded decision like this when morale at the paper is already so low? Where was their foresight? Had they no idea where this was going? Can they turn it around without somebody losing their jobs?