Life is good at the top of Lee Enterprises for CEO Mary Junck and other top company executives. They continue paying themselves handsomely for keeping the company afloat.
Yes, these executives have steered the company out of bankruptcy and alleviated its debt crisis. And, yes, Lee Enterprises is faring better than most newspapers companies in this transformational period for the industry.
But newsrooms at Lee properties are a fraction of their former size. Journalists have faced pay cuts, furloughs and lay-offs. Surviving journalists are forced to do more with less.
Predictably, morale for our members at the Post-Dispatch and non-Guild employees at other Lee newspapers is not great. The P-D hasn’t had layoffs recently because so many journalists have exited the newsroom voluntarily, moving on other media outlets or other professions.
The Columbia Journalism Review offered up a nice take on a scenario UMG members know all too well.