Pink-Slipped Missoulian Reporters Get Back on Their Feet
By Robert Struckman, 12-02-08
A little over two months after getting laid off from the Missoulian, husband-and-wife reporting team Pam Podger and John Cramer have been doing OK, Podger said. I had called her for an update after I read her column in the American Journalism Review. In it, she described the tough moment she learned that both she and her husband would be out of work, immediately.
“Both of us?” I sputtered.
It was all I could say when the publisher of the Missoulian, the daily newspaper in Missoula, Montana, quietly told my husband and me that we were both being laid off, effective immediately. The publisher praised our performance and told us that the decision was based on seniority. No matter our combined 50 years of experience – we were the newest staff members.
It was a Wednesday morning in late August, and our biggest concern heading into work that day had been finding a way to carve out time for more in-depth stories. Now, suddenly, we were unemployed.
“The freelance is rolling from the AJR and the New York Times and Montana Magazine. The editor there, Butch Larcombe, is amazing. I’m also editing for a Boston-based consulting firm and will be adjunct-teaching in January,” Podger said. She’ll teach at the Journalism School at the University of Montana.
“John is being a super-trooper, going down to Hamilton,” she added. Her husband has been commuting to the Ravalli Republic for a reporting position he got shortly after leaving Missoula’s daily newspaper. “We’re happy to have income and healthcare. It’s a hard town to find two good-paying jobs. Neither of us bear any ill-will toward anyone at the Missoulian. It’s just that we got slammed.”
As for daily newspapering, she misses it, and worries about the future of watchdog journalism.
“I don’t despair about the industry. I think it’ll come back,” she said.
And there are some bright points not working in an office every day. After all, the pair has two young sons.
“It’s hard not knowing how I’m going to pay the bills, but it’s nice to spend time with the kids,” she said.
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Just a few short years ago, the Republic had a slate of fine local reporters, all of whom worked diligently to keep the citizens of the Bitterroot informed on local issues. It never ran wire stories, and it certainly never ran stories from the Missoulian, which it viewed as its competitor. It also won scores of awards from the Montana Newspaper Association.
Now the Republic has a publisher, editor and senior reporter, all of whom worked at the Missoulian. And it's not uncommon for the two papers to run two identical cover on the same day. In fact, Cramer and editor Perry Backus' stories regularly appear in the Missoulian.
So, Cramer's layoff wasn't really a layoff at all. The Missoulian still uses him as a reporter. The real layoffs -- and perhaps the real story -- happened at the Republic.
At least one of the reporters who got canned deserved it -- he was lazy and didn't give a damn if he got things right. But most of them worked hard under difficult circumstances to report on local issues in their community. Their firings were shameful, and the Republic is less of a paper as a result.