By Charly Edsitty
The UNITY News Online

Recently unemployed members of the National Association of Black Journalists gathered at UNITY on Thursday to give a voice and an open ear to those affected.

The meeting was spurred by an NABJ listserv post by Tina A. Brown, which drew an overwhelming response. She has been a staff writer at The Hartford Courant for 16 years and wrote that she took a buyout from the newspaper and would be out of a job by July 31.

“People are feeling kind of panicked,” said Jackie Jones, an NABJ member who helped coordinate the impromptu gathering of affected members attending the convention. “They don’t know where the industry is going.”

NABJ offered financial assistance to recently laid-off members to enable them to attend the convention.

Jones and fellow meeting coordinator Neil Foote, explained that comments on the listserv indicated that this was an important issue among the members.

After addressing the group, which met at the Sheraton hotel, Jones and Foote opened the floor to the audience. Many shared stories of surviving several rounds of buyouts and job cuts, and discussed skills that could be transferrable to other careers.

Both Jones and Foote are working to create a volunteer committee that will assist members who lose jobs. They hope to have a committee in place in two to three weeks.

“I could feel the pain of what people were writing on the listserv,” said former NABJ President, Sidmel Estes-Sumpter, who attended the meeting.

She lost her job two years ago at a Fox affiliate in Atlanta after 27 years.

“I was broadsided, I had no clue it was coming and beat myself up wondering why I didn’t see it,” she said.

Estes-Sumpter said she sunk into a depression after losing her job and faced home foreclosure.  She is still financially struggling, but is optimistic about her future.

“The first thing is to never give up,” Estes-Sumpter said. “Second, it’s not you. You are not the problem, it’s the industry. Third, think differently about being a journalist.”

Estes-Sumpter’s story is all too familiar to Brown who explained that more than a month ago she received an e-mail from her executive editor stating that there would be “significant” buyouts and layoffs that would affect people in the newsroom.

Brown explained that her exit wasn’t about the money, but a chance to change her life and take it in another direction. Employees were given nine days to make a decision.

Brown is hopeful about her future and said she is relying on her skills to pull her through hard times. Leading by example, she hopes to show other journalists that everything is not lost.

“There may be a time when I am panicking and crying, but right now I am not there,” Brown said.  “I have my faith, savings, family, friends and most of all I have skills. I can do anything.”

Brown holds no resentment toward her former employer but worries that job cuts may be affecting the bigger picture of journalism.

“Freedom of the Press might be destroyed because people have gotten into so much debt,” Brown said.  “I’m getting bought out because a company made some bad business decisions.”

topic: Industry Issues
tags: budget cuts, jobs, layoffs

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