Nobody in HR likes to oversee layoffs — there are all sorts of negatives associated with them. But a North Carolina newspaper probably didn’t expect this outcome.
A subscriber has sued the Raleigh-Durham News & Observer for cutting staff and the size of the newspaper.
Keith Hempstead, a lawyer in Durham, says he renewed his subscription just before the paper announced layoffs of 70 staffers and cuts in news pages.
He says the paper is no longer worth what he signed up for.
Could he just cancel his subscription? Sure, but Hempstead says he’s suing instead to make a point that he thinks it’s wrong for newspapers to cut costs among their news staff.
The paper’s executive editor, John Drescher, says he thinks the papers are still worth more than the 36 cents per day Hempstead is paying for them.
“In fact, he owes me money,” Drescher said. “He can work with my lawyer and figure out how much he’s going to pay me for the excellent coverage he’s been getting recently.”
