In the vein of Spencer's post about Register interns, I've got some confessions of my own: a certain person on this blog may have, at one point, worked as an intern for one of the Orange County Register's sister papers, the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Arizona. In fact, said Albert-esque person may have even worked there full-time–twice!
If I had managed to stick around there, I would have had some unforeseen free time in the near future: Freedom Communications (the parent company of both the Register and the Tribune, natch) president N CEO Scott Flanders announced mandatory one-week furloughs, to be taken between April and June, for “all but the most recently hired employees across its many daily and weekly papers,” according to reports from Editor N Publisher, among others. That article goes on to clarify that it's those hired within the last six months that are exempt; the most surprising part of this, of course, is that Freedom was able to hire anyone in the last six months.
The news was announced to my former colleagues in Arizona through a “town hall” meeting, and though it was surely a bummer for most, it was likely nonetheless cheerier than the “town hall” meeting the Trib had back in October that announced 142 layoffs and that the paper was dropping from seven days a week to four.
