Joe Haakenson, the Sports Editor for the Long Beach Press-Telegram, was let go Friday.
Haakenson, a nearly 25-year veteran of the news industry, was reportedly offered a transfer to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune with a 15-percent pay cut, but declined.
Sports editing duties at the Press-Telegram will now be performed by the P-T's Executive City Editor John Futch, who also currently serves as the paper's Photo Editor.
Members of the P-T Sports Department were informed of Haakenson's departure during a Friday afternoon meeting.
Guild representatives met with P-T management immediately following the meeting and were told that Haakenson's departure would not impact any Guild member positions beyond a change in work flow and readers would see no change in coverage.
During the meeting, P-T management also confirmed reports that a plan was in the works by the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a nine-paper Southern California cluster of Denver-based Affiliated Media daily papers which includes the Press-Telegram and the Los Angeles Daily News, to purchase new photography equipment for photographers LANG-wide. If approved by Denver, the capital expense plan would begin implementation by LANG management sometime after July 1 and be instituted in several phases at the various LANG papers.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Haakenson out
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5 comments:
The editor-in-chief is the next janitor.
Seriously, what is LANG/MG/PT thinking these days? The low moral is evident in the poor-quality, error-filled newspaper.
Soon it is going to be just Jon Futch taking photos, writing, editing and delivering the paper on his bike.
So let me get this right ... little by little the sports department at the LBPT is getting slashed but they stilll employ all those columnists?
Their columns are boring and sound the same week after week, especially Kirkorian's stuff. He should have been canned from the start!
It's history in the making, watching a company gut itself from the inside out like this. LANG won't be happy until each section has one person in charge for all 8 papers.... which is not inconceivable considering we are headed for a one-section paper anyway. sorry to hear a 25-year vet like Joe was treated so callously, but then, callous is LANG's strong suit.
let a guy go BUT spending money on equipment? huh?
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