The gate to hell

You wonder why I was cut back to 2 stories/week with the Current? Well, maybe you weren't but I'm still going to tell you ... well, some guy named Dan Kennedy will tell you, right here.

I couldn't cut and paste from his blog, but I copped this off the Patriot Ledger site:

GateHouse Media New England plans to implement a temporary salary reduction next week as it reacts to an industrywide downturn in advertising sales.

The company, which publishes The Patriot Ledger and nearly 100 other newspapers in the state, announced the salary reduction to employees on Thursday. The pay cut is aimed at saving $2.5 million this year.

The size of the pay reduction will vary depending on an employee’s salary, ranging from 7 percent up to just under 15 percent for the company’s top earners.

The average pay cut would be 7.75 percent. If the reduction lasts through the end of 2009, it would have the effect of an average pay cut of 4.5 percent for the full year.

Still ... CNC (owned by Gatehouse) launched that glossy magazine earlier this year.

I know the people at CNC, at least, made peanuts before the cuts. I have to agree with the comment at the end of the piece: "Wow. So many GateHouse reporters will now qualify for food stamps?"