Oregon Media Insiders

There are lots of talented people who can write for the O. They'll just come in for a lesser paycheck. Whether they can match or surpass the quality will be seen in time. Meanwhile, the folks who are left will do a lot more work, and the O won't be able to cover as much news. The economy is hurting all businesses, not just media. Remember when the Sunday car ads used to be full pages?
The big names leaving the O are making a good decision. Where else are you going to get two years pay, and health benefits, for NOT coming to work? It's a no brainer. It's a much more generous offer than most companies would make. I wish Dave, Renee, Wade & all the best of luck. It was great at the O while it lasted.

Only thing is 2 years goes by amazingly fast; I personally know that 6 years goes by really fast. I'm saved by a defined-benefit retirement system that I paid into for well over 2 decades.

I doubt the O's folks have that luxury, but I could be wrong.

I certainly wish them well. Until the last year or so, I loved the O. Now, it feels sort of "stripped" down to the minimum, and I get more depth and breadth on the internets.

Fwiw
VR

You shouldn't be crushed. Hell, you shouldn't even be surprised. Big papers are choosy; they can afford to be. Whatever the O's problems -- and judging from this site, it has a lot of them -- it's still very highly regarded in the industry, and it's in a terrific city. I'm sure they got resumes by the truckload even before the business started going to hell and laying off journalists by the thousands. Moving to a big city and trying to get into its daily paper is a huge gamble -- be grateful they leveled with you so you can concentrate your time and energy on jobs you've actually got a shot at.

I don't work at the O., but any major metro's gonna pay well over $50K and have people (librarians, usually) to help with research. Look at the Newspaper Guild site (http://www.newsguild.org/scales/index.php?ID=4091) to get an idea of what salaries are like at different papers. The O's not union, but look at similarly sized shops.

Yes on the pay, especially for those who have been there a long time. Benefits are good too, although they're not as generous as they were 20 years ago. But the research department has been cut to the bones, just one or two researchers now.

I left years ago and the 50K figure was way too low then, more so now. Research help, as of when I was there, was outstanding. (We had helpful library folks for decades, but internet researchers who could give you the phone number of the former next door neighbor of the source you were trying to find is more recent. A real time-saver.)
Milk and honey? Pre-Rowe the backstabbing and jealousies were the stuff of novels, and the sheer incompetence was staggering.
Rowe raised standards, but the jockeying the new management and staff enlargement (staffing budget increases had more to do with the quality change than any person) made for much insecurity. But you sure as heck could do stories, take cabs or planes as needed, etc. Still, weeklies, if relatively fearless, were pure fun. You actually know most of the people you piss off.

Back in 1987 one of the assistant city editors left a stack of pay stubs in a communal drawer at the City Desk. She'd been at The O ~two years at the time (on top of maybe eight to 10 years daily experience elsewhere) and was grossing $50k per annum given my back of the envelope calculations for 37.5 hours per week. My understanding then was that veteran reporters were topping out ~$45K, copydeskers a bit less. (Niceoldguy has a better feel for that than I do.)

As an Oregonian employee, I didn't really realize that things were this tough until they told us they were going to convert all the full-time harem girls and cabana boys to part-time. I can't help but wonder: Who's going to plop grapes in my mouth when I'm on deadline?