Monday, April 13, 2009

"Best years ever"

USA Today founder Al Neuharth's "Plain Talk" column April 10 references the owner of my former company as Neuharth opines about a feeling of hope and optimism about the economy that he has found in mid-America.

With some necessary staff reductions at The Forum, the company, which includes 11 daily newspapers in North Dakota and Minnesota, is having "one of our best years ever," Bill Marcil is quoted as saying.

His comment disturbed my inner peace so much that I exploded in anger over the simple matter of misplaced objects in one of my kitchen cabinets.

I am one of those staff reductions, though not from Marcil's Forum. And I personally know many of the other staff reductions from his recently acquired Duluth and Grand Forks newspapers. (My incomplete tally puts the number of employees he has laid off since March of 2008 at 85. And that doesn't include employees who received buyouts, were fired or simply left -- but were never replaced.)

I can't begin to imagine what happens during one of his company's worst years ever.

3 comments:

  1. Lloyd Case sent out an email saying Marcil was misquoted. But as of yet, I have not seen a correction.

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  2. Yeah, this has ruffled some feathers.

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  3. I read the e-mail Lloyd Case sent. Interesting that it was cited as a "by the way" at the bottom of a list of the company's four new vice presidents and didn't say how Bill Marcil was misquoted.

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