July 24, 2008

JT lays off seven and loses reporter

The same day its parent company released a dismal finacial report, the Journal Times laid off seven employees. The paper isn't talking publicly about the layoffs, but it's believed none of the dismissed employees worked in the newsroom.

However, reporter and columnist Phyllis Sides was let go earlier this month. JT Editor Steve Lovejoy declined to say why Sides left the paper, and hung up on the RacinePost when asked for comment.

Sides, a JT reporter for nine years, was the only minority employee in the newspaper's newsroom. She was unavailable for comment Thursday.

10 comments:

  1. Sides was pretty unexciting in reporting but as we all know, you can be a great reporter and it doesn't mean squat at the JT.

    Seven is alot of people in a small paper. I would have thought just the amount of foreclosures being printed would boost the financial state of the JT.

    I don't want to see the JT go under, we need a daily paper, yes, a hardcopy, I can't quite let go of not getting some sort of newspaper in the morning. Now that the Racine Post has become part of our frequent reading program, perhaps I can think someday of trimming down but for now, I want my daily, even with all it's faults.

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  2. I was wondering what ever happened to Rachel Campbell ?
    It also seems like I have not seen a column from Randall ? Brandt after he wrote that dumb racial column. Is Randall ? still working ? He seemed kinda old.

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  3. They had better keep Stephanie, she is hott!!!!!! (and a good reporter also)

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  4. She used her charms on me! I gave it up!
    Is more still there?

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  5. Racine Journal NEEDS a hard hitting story or two, needs to stick with it.

    Also, The Kenosha Paper just gives you the tidbits, you have to subscribe online or get a hard copy subscription to get the complete paper on line. I don't know why Racine can't do the same, hate me but I subscribe to Kenosha to just to get the sales information!

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  6. Is "minority" pc code for "black"?

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  7. downtown_racine:
    Rachel Campbell was awful, she's been gone for years now I think. Brandt is also gone.
    Anon:
    "minority" is pc for the JT only hires white people now.

    And whatever happened to the Spanish section that was in once a week? They should bring that back. They need to change something to save themselves.

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  8. Maybe we can look forward to some more poorly written lefty political columns on the sports pages from Peter Jackel.

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  9. We definitly dont need a spanish section printed ever! in an AMERICAN city. You want spanish go to 7 mile fair. The Journal will surely go under if they try that crap on the City of racine. They lost alot of subscribers last time they pulled that.

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