Tribune Publishing told its employees a month ago that business was bad and it needed to cut costs so it was offering hundreds of buyouts. On Thursday it announced that it had approved buyouts for about 7 percent of its roughly 7,000 eligible employees. The journalists who will soon exit the Chicago Tribune include a number of distinguished veterans. The loss will be brutal.
When the Tribune laid off photographer Chuck Berman in June, he was OK with it and so was his wife, columnist Barbara Brotman. “We’re going to have a party at the Billy Goat,” she told me at the time. “I’m glad I’m still there. He’s on my insurance, and I love the work. But I don’t feel angry at anyone, and he doesn’t feel angry at anyone. It’s strangely OK.”
The stories Mastony entered put these worries to rest, especially the one about a high school wrestling coach who stayed at his post despite a devastating disease. In 2012 we gave Mastony the first Keegan Award. Since then she’s been one of the judges.
Is journalism over for you? I asked. “I think so,” she said. “Yeah, I think it is. I wish it wasn’t. But the opportunities are shrinking everywhere and the sacrifices that have to be made to fit yourself into the work available—it’s hard.” What sacrifices? “I think that maybe I could find something somewhere [in journalism],” Mastony explained. But it wouldn’t be Chicago, because she believes that beyond the Tribune there’s nothing here. The sacrifice would be leaving Chicago, asking her husband and daughter to uproot.
