A chapter closes
My last blog post was, I'm ashamed to say, in early December and followed the news that we were embarking on a process of offering voluntary retrenchments at the Dispatch as a result of the prevailing economic conditions.
Dispatch during an earlier era
Well, that process is now completed and a significant number of staff in all departments have taken the offer of the voluntary packages. Many have left already and more will be leaving at the end of this week. It's been a hard time for all concerned and I have done a lot of thinking over the last month that this process has unfolded.
I'm sure my feelings are shared by many around the world as companies lay-off staff or do other restructuring. While necessary for the survival of our newspaper, it is sad to say goodbye to so many people.
I think that for every person that walks out the door that our workplace loses a little bit of its character. Our newsroom and our building will be different when everyone who is going is gone.
We are going to have to get used to a new character shaped by the remaining staff. I'm sure we will adapt but this last month has been a difficult chapter for us to write into the long history of the Dispatch which can be traced back to 1872.
I've done some reading back into the history of the paper and the only period which comes close to this at the moment would be back in 1931 in the depths of a global depression. Sir Charles Preston Crewe, the paper's proprietor at the time, made many hard decisions to keep the paper going. He cut down on the size of editions and asked staff to take pay cuts so the Dispatch would survive.
The paper did survive and over the years it has thrived - and despite these challenging times I am determined that the Dispatch will continue to thrive. In in 80 years I hope another editor of whatever the Dispatch may be then will reflect on this period and see that we made the right choices even if they were hard to make.
