Tag: staff
New York Times To Slash 100 Newsroom Jobs In Streamlining

New York Times To Slash 100 Newsroom Jobs In Streamlining

New York (AFP) — The New York Times said Wednesday it plans to cut 100 newsroom jobs in the latest move by the prestigious daily to adapt to industry upheaval.

“The job losses are necessary to control our costs and to allow us to continue to invest in the digital future of The New York Times, but we know that they will be painful both for the individuals affected and for their colleagues,” according to a note to employees cited by the daily.

The note from publisher Arthur Sulzberger and chief executive Mark Thompson also said that a mobile app dedicated to opinion content was shutting down because it lacked enough subscribers.

The job cuts represent around 7.5 percent of the newsroom staff of 1,330 — which according to the newspaper is a record high. The Times has been adding jobs over the past year for online and video news initiatives.

The Times will be offering buyouts to journalists and will resort to layoffs if it cannot get enough people to leave voluntarily, according to the note.

The daily has been struggling to remain profitable in recent years and has been pushing harder to emphasize digital content as print subscriptions decline. The Times has also been selling off “non-core” assets including the Boston Globe newspaper and websites unrelated to its news operations.

But even as the Times shifts its focus, it is being challenged by a new breed of all-digital news operations with lower costs.

Executive editor Dean Baquet, in a separate note to the staff said he would use the opportunity “to seriously reconsider some of what we do — from the number of sections we produce to the amount we spend on freelance content.”

The news comes following a tumultuous period which saw the dismissal of executive editor Jill Abramson, who was replaced by Baquet.

Abramson’s dismissal in May unleashed a polemic in the media world amid speculation that she was fired for complaining about being paid less than her male counterparts — an allegation denied by the company.

In the most recent quarter, the New York Time Co. reported a sharp drop in profits as lower advertising revenues offset gains in digital subscriptions.

Net profit for the second quarter fell to $9.2 million from $20.1 million in the same period a year ago. Total revenues fell slightly to $389 million, with circulation revenues up 1.4 percent and ad revenues down 4.1 percent.

The bottom line was also hurt by higher operating costs, which the company attributed to increased investments in boosting the digital profile of the prestigious newspaper publisher.

Digital advertising revenues were up 3.4 percent but that failed to offset a 6.6 percent drop in print advertising revenue.

AFP Photo/Ramin Talaie

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U.S. Cuts Embassy Staff In Baghdad As Insurgents Approach Iraqi Capital

U.S. Cuts Embassy Staff In Baghdad As Insurgents Approach Iraqi Capital

By Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy Foreign Staff

IRBIL, Iraq — The United States announced Sunday that it was removing an undisclosed number of workers from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in a tacit acknowledgment that the situation in the Iraqi capital had become unpredictable and that violence seemed likely.

The announcement came as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed to have executed 1,700 Iraqi soldiers, all of them Shiite Muslims who’d been captured last week.

In a statement, the U.S. State Department did not reveal how many of its workers were being moved out of the embassy compound, saying that “overall, a substantial majority of the U.S. Embassy presence in Iraq will remain in place.” But even if a majority remains at the compound, the evacuation could mean the departure of hundreds of workers. The Baghdad embassy is the United States’ largest, with 5,300 U.S. government employees.

A separate announcement from the Defense Department said the evacuation of embassy personnel was “being facilitated aboard commercial, charter and State Department aircraft as appropriate.” The statement said U.S. military “airlift assets” were “at the ready,” but suggested that the State Department had not requested military assistance in the evacuation.

The statement by Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said the U.S. military also had sent a “small number” of Defense Department personnel to assist “State Department security assets in Baghdad to help ensure the safety of our facilities.”

The decision to evacuate Americans from the huge embassy compound came as the likelihood of sectarian and ethnic violence in Baghdad grew. Fighters allied with the Sunni Muslim ISIS vowed to press their lightning advance across northern and central Iraq into the capital.

Earlier Sunday, ISIS posted photos on the Internet that it said depicted the execution of hundreds of members of the Iraqi security forces taken prisoner when ISIS overran the Iraqi city of Tikrit last week.

A statement accompanying the photos claimed the men were all Shiite Muslims — an assertion that is sure to inflame Iraq’s emotion-filled sectarian divisions that in recent days have inspired thousands of Shiite men flock to Baghdad to volunteer to help the army counter ISIS’s push into the capital and nearby cities.

ISIS, which now controls much of Anbar province in the west and Nineveh province in the north and has pushed into Salahuddin and Diyala provinces just north of Baghdad, considers Shiite Muslims to be heretics subject to death. The feud between Sunnis and Shiites dates to A.D. 680, when a Sunni army beheaded one of the most revered figures in Shiite history at the Battle of Karbala. Recent ISIS statements have urged its followers to march to Karbala.

In its statement accompanying the photos, ISIS said it had executed 1,700 Shiite prisoners in Tikrit, a claim that could not be verified. ISIS also said it had released 2,500 Sunni prisoners after receiving promises that the men would repent and no longer fight for the government.

An Iraqi military spokesman told the Associated Press that the pictures appeared to have been taken after a former U.S. military facility in Tikrit fell to ISIS forces. The spokesman, Lt. Gen. Qassim Moussawi, did not comment, however, on whether 1,700 had been confirmed killed, as the group claims.

The photos showed dozens of young men bound in the back of trucks, then being led into open fields and executed by masked men firing assault rifles. Most of the men appeared to be wearing civilian clothes.

The caption on one photograph, which showed a dozen young men with their heads bowed and hands bound behind their backs while being menaced by masked gunmen, said the Iraqi Army’s “lions had been turned into ostriches.” Other captions described similar scenes as “the apostates being led to their doom.”

The decision to spare Sunni prisoners — if true — undoubtedly stems from a desire by ISIS to maintain good relations with the large number of Sunni tribes in central and western Iraq that have joined its offensive, fueled by rising anger at Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al Malaki, whose been accused of sectarian discrimination and brutality.

In addition to ISIS, a mix of tribal fighters and supporters of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi strongman who was deposed by the Americans in 2003 and executed by the Shiite-led government that came to power afterward, have joined the fight, angered at what they say is sectarian discrimination and brutality by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al Malaki’s government.

Highlighting the sectarian nature of the conflict, which has threatened the future of the modern Iraqi state, was Malaki’s decision — backed by Shiite religious figures — to call upon Shiite militias that had mostly been disbanded after the sectarian civil war that followed the American-led invasion. It has also drawn the attention of Shiite-ruled Iran, which appears willing to send aid and expertise, and perhaps deploy ground troops to help protect the regime.

The Obama administration also is considering aid to the Iraqis, including possible airstrikes. But President Barack Obama conditioned any assistance on Maliki and other Iraqi politicians putting aside their differences — something most observers say is unlikely.

On Sunday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki raised the issue of internal reconciliation, event as she condemned the reports of the execution of 1,700 Iraqi military personnel, whom she described as “air force recruits,” as “a true depiction of the bloodlust that these terrorists represent.”

“This underscores the need for Iraqi leaders from across the political spectrum to take steps that will unify the country in the face of this threat,” she said.

The sectarian nature of the conflict was emphasized by the U.S. announcement on where it was redeploying its embassy workers.

The State Department said the they would be sent to Amman, Jordan, where the U.S. operates a mission to support American activities in Iraq, or to two Iraqi cities distinguished by their ethnic and religious homogeneity — Irbil, in the north, which has a majority Kurd population, or Basra, in the far south, where Shiite Muslims predominate.

The State Department also warned Americans to limit their travel to five Iraqi provinces where Sunni Arab Muslims are either the dominant group or a significant minority— Anbar, Nineveh, Salahuddin, Dyiala and Kirkuk.


Interested in learning more about the crisis in Iraq? You can read more here.
AFP Photo/Safin Hamed

Law Firm’s Interview Notes Shed Light On Christie Staff

Law Firm’s Interview Notes Shed Light On Christie Staff

By Melissa Hayes, John Reitmeyer and Michael Linhorst, The Record (Hackensack, N.J.)

TRENTON, N.J. — More than 400 pages of documents made public Monday present a detailed picture of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s intertwined government and political operations, a network run by people so close to him that he became physically ill when reading a story in The Record that showed they were involved in the George Washington Bridge scandal.

Page after page of interview notes detail how staff in Christie’s administration worked to secure Democratic endorsements on behalf of his re-election campaign. It was an operation that helped Christie win by 22 points, earn a majority of Latino and female voters, garner 32 percent of Democrats and set him up for a potential presidential bid in 2016. Now Christie’s political future is in question after members of his inner circle were tied to the politically vindictive lane closures at the bridge last September.

The documents released Monday — the work of the lawyers Christie hired to review his office’s involvement in the lane closures — also show that members of the administration suggested legal counsel for two key figures embroiled in the controversy: one a top aide, the other the governor’s campaign manager.

Christie’s lawyers, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, have sent the interview materials to Reid Schar, the attorney for the New Jersey Legislative Select Committee on Investigation, and to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, both of which are investigating the lane closures.

“We will review them and determine our next step,” Assemblyman John Wisniewski and Sen. Loretta Weinberg, who lead the legislative committee, said in a joint statement. “We have made clear that we reserve the right to request additional materials and, as necessary, to issue subpoenas if we believe further information is required.”

Christie’s team of lawyers interviewed 75 individuals — many of them staff members in the State House or on the campaign — and compiled a report that cleared the governor of having any prior knowledge of the lane closures.

Critics called the 344-page report a whitewash.

The interview memos used to prepare that report contained vague summaries and few direct quotes and appear to omit explanatory details. The summaries include nearly 370 instances where those being interviewed were unable to recall details about events they were asked to discuss.

But Monday’s documents also included key pieces of information that were downplayed or left out of the report altogether.

For example, some of the interviews show how a key aide in the governor’s office coordinated with Christie’s campaign to penalize mayors who did not endorse the governor, by instructing State House staff not to return phone calls or schedule meetings. The interviews also detail weekly meetings and conference calls between staff in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs who served as liaisons to local elected officials and the campaign.

After one employee questioned whether it was proper for staff to be working to secure endorsements from the same mayors they worked with in their State House jobs, Christie’s campaign manager got the governor’s deputy chief counsel to sign off on the work so long as it was done after hours. This detail was also left out of the Gibson Dunn report.

Gibson Dunn released only its summaries of interviews Monday, including its meetings with Christie, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, governor’s press secretary Michael Drewniak, chief of staff Kevin O’Dowd and the chief counsel at the time, Charles McKenna. Michael DuHaime, Christie’s campaign strategist, and Reginia Egea, head of the authorities unit, which oversees the Port Authority, also were interviewed.

The notes provide some documentation for details and findings included in the report Gibson Dunn released last month. That report said Bridget Anne Kelly, the governor’s deputy chief of staff at the time, and David Wildstein, a Christie appointee at the Port Authority who had since resigned, carried out the lane closures.

After announcing he had fired Kelly on Jan. 9, Christie said he was also cutting ties with Bill Stepien, his campaign manager, because he didn’t like Stepien’s tone in emails about the Fort Lee mayor, which The Record had also obtained.

Kelly, Wildstein and Stepien did not consent to interviews requested by Gibson Dunn. But the accounts of others who worked in the State House or on the campaign paint a picture of how endorsements were secured and what happened to local officials who didn’t support Christie.

For example, Richard Constable, commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs, acknowledged in his interview that Kelly, who oversaw the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs (referred to as “IGA”) and worked with local officials, wanted him to get her approval before meeting with mayors.

“He recalled being told to clear meetings with elected officials through IGA and was told by Kelly not to meet, for example, with Jersey City Mayor Fulop,” Constable said, according to the notes of his interview.

Mayor Steve Fulop has alleged that Christie’s administration canceled a series of meetings, organized by Stepien, after he decided not to endorse the Republican governor. Fulop’s allegations are not explored in the Gibson Dunn report. Fulop was not interviewed by the team of attorneys, which was led by Randy Mastro, a former federal prosecutor who worked in New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s administration.

The notes on Constable’s interview reflect on a point the report made clear when it was released last month, specifically that Constable denied Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s allegation that, during a May 2013 televised town hall event in Monmouth County, Superstorm Sandy aid was linked to a redevelopment project. Constable said Christie never linked aid for Sandy to politics.

The Constable interview also revealed that Port Authority Chairman David Samson checked with him in August 2013 about whether he had plans to continue serving in the administration if Christie won a second term.

The notion that Samson — who led Christie’s transition team in 2009 — played a role in the governor’s administration beyond his position at the Port Authority is also made clear in the summary of an interview with O’Dowd. He said Christie “tasked Samson with talking to various Cabinet members in the administration to determine their second-term plans if the governor was re-elected and that O’Dowd assisted Samson in this process,” according to the interview notes.

Samson has since resigned from his position at the Port Authority and declined the Gibson Dunn team’s request to interview him.

Zimmer has alleged that Christie wanted her to fast-track a development proposed by a company that Samson’s law firm was representing.

Richard Rebisz, an intergovernmental affairs employee assigned to communities hit by Sandy, told interviewers he did not talk to Zimmer about her decision not to endorse Christie, but that Christina Renna, a supervisor in intergovernmental affairs, told him “not to bend over backwards for Mayor Zimmer.”

In her interview with investigators, Renna said she believed Stepien kept track of mayors who were not in favor with intergovernmental affairs.

“IGA staff would receive mandatory directives along the lines of ‘Do not rush to return this mayor’s phone call,’ ” the memorandum on Renna’s interview says. “Sometimes IGA staff received a directive along the lines of ‘no need to call to check in’ with a local elected official, which was enough to send a message to the local elected official.”

While the Gibson Dunn report summarily dismissed Zimmer’s allegations — saying “the subjective perceptions she may have do not match objective reality” — it did not mention that the Hoboken mayor tried to hire Christie’s top campaign strategist for her 2013 re-election bid.

The documents show that Zimmer approached duHaime, a former Hoboken resident who worked on Christie’s 2009 and 2013 campaigns and consults with the Republican Governors Association, in late 2012 or early 2013 about her re-election bid. DuHaime did not end up working for the mayor but did approach her about endorsing Christie. Zimmer’s election was months before she spoke to Lt. Gov. Kim Gaudagno, a meeting in which the mayor alleges the administration tied Sandy aid to her city’s approval of a development.

A spokesman for Zimmer said Monday the mayor was celebrating Passover and could not be reached for comment.

When Christie gathered his top staff, Samson and his campaign chairman, Bill Palatucci, at Drumthwacket, the governor’s mansion in Princeton, on Jan. 8, there was a discussion over whether Kelly and Stepien should hire attorneys because of all the media attention the incident was drawing, according to O’Dowd’s interview notes.

Someone — O’Dowd does not recall who — suggested they hire attorneys Walter Timpone and Kevin Marino. Kelly and Stepien went on to retain those attorneys, though Kelly has since replaced Timpone with Michael Critchley, a top criminal defense lawyer in the state.

Christie told his investigators about the Jan. 8 meeting and said he and his staff decided it was best not to talk to Kelly or Stepien, but the notes on his interview make no mention of the discussion about whether they should retain legal counsel.

Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Louisiana Congressman ‘Very Sorry’ After Video Shows Romantic Encounter

Louisiana Congressman ‘Very Sorry’ After Video Shows Romantic Encounter

By Michael A. Memoli, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Louisiana Rep. Vance McAllister has apologized after a video surfaced of the Republican lawmaker in a romantic encounter with a member of his staff.

On Monday, the Ouachita Citizen posted a brief video sent by an anonymous source that shows McAllister, who is married, leaving his congressional office in Monroe, La., after passionately kissing a woman the paper identified as his district scheduler, Melissa Anne Hixon Peacock.

According to the newspaper, the incident occurred on Dec. 23, barely a month after McAllister had been sworn into office.

McAllister won a special election in November after a campaign in which he described himself as a “veteran, family man and self-made businessman.” One of his television ads featured his wife of 15 years and five children as he said that Louisiana values “of faith, family and hard work are sorely missing in Washington.”

McAllister was also boosted in his campaign by an endorsement from Willie Robertson and other stars of the TV series “Duck Dynasty.” Robertson was McAllister’s invited guest to the State of the Union address in January.

In a statement released by his office hours after the story was posted online, McAllister said he had “fallen short” and was “very sorry for what I’ve done.”

“Trust is something I know has to be earned, whether your (sic) a husband, a father or a congressman,” he said. “I promise to do everything I can to earn back the trust of everyone I’ve disappointed.”

McAllister also said that although he was a public servant, he hoped for privacy for his family.

McAllister won’t face voters again until November under the state’s voting process, in which candidates from all parties compete in the general election, followed by a December runoff if no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote.

MCT Photo