Furlough journal, day 2; losing the newsroom

A furloughed education reporter describes what it’s like to be told to stay home during a major news event. 

By Linda Borg

Today, we lost the gentle heart of the newsroom, not to COVID-19, but to layoffs.

Most of us who work for large newspapers have seen this process, the slow winnowing of a newsroom. I call it death by a thousand pricks.

Janet B.’s pink slip feels different. She has been here 51 years, longer than any other staffer.

An editorial assistant, she had only one byline during her entire career: an ode to her husband, Bill, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack five years ago.

Yesterday, she told me that her longest relationship was with the newspaper, even longer than her marriage to Bill, which lasted 50 years.

Fresh from high school, Bill and Janet met at a Van Morrison concert.

“There was something about his face that caught my eye,” Janet wrote.

“It wasn’t that he was handsome, though he definitely was. It was something else. As I think back now, I think it was his kind demeanor that impressed me from that very first moment.

“Many people predicted that our marriage would never last. Bill was black and I was white. But it did last because we were soulmates”

Most of us who work for large newspapers have seen this process, the slow winnowing of a newsroom. I call it death by a thousand pricks.

Let me tell you about Janet. She never won any awards. Her stories never appeared on page 1. She wrote about the simple comings and goings of peoples’ lives.

But she made the newsroom hum.

It was Janet who handled the cranks who called about their missing papers. It was Janet who fixed the balky printers, mothered new reporters, and helped Luddites like me fix some Windows 7 glitch.

Janet’s last words to her husband were, “I love you.”

“Twenty minutes later my phone rang,” she wrote. “It was my son. He was frantic. He had received a call from his cousin who worked at the garage with Bill. He told him that his dad had collapsed and was in an ambulance on his way to Rhode Island Hospital.

“I flew out of the newsroom and managed to arrive at the hospital just as the ambulance was pulling in. Bill was in a coma. He never woke up. He died a week later surrounded by friends and family. The kindest, most unselfish human being I had ever known was gone.”

Janet recently told the executive editor that if there was another round of layoffs, she’d take the hit. She wanted to protect the young reporters, who had their whole lives ahead of them.

“Bill spent his life helping other people, even when it wasn’t convenient,” she wrote. “He preferred to keep his good deeds to himself. I knew only about the ones he could not keep secret. And then he would say, “No one needs to know about this.”

“His reward was that special feeling you get when you do something for someone with absolutely no expectation in return….”

It was Janet who handled the cranks who called about their missing papers. It was Janet who fixed the balky printers, mothered new reporters, and helped luddites like me fix some Windows 7 glitch.   

Janet has always been special to me. I’d stop by her desk every day and compliment her on her inventive scarves, her carefully matched outfits. We’d chat about her two sons, her dance classes, the minutiae of life.

Sometimes, we’d talk about Bill.

Our newsroom has a tradition. When a reporter leaves, that person gets a big sheet cake and an editor reads their very first story.

In recent years, the sheet cakes have grown smaller, as have the newsroom send-offs.

Because of the virus, Janet will leave unheralded. A few of us hope to do a Zoom cocktail hour with her this weekend.

“The last line of Bill’s obituary read “in lieu of flowers, a random act of kindness for someone in need would be appreciated.” What better way to honor Bill, I thought, than to pay kindness forward.”

Janet paid it forward every day.

Related entries:

Furlough journal, day 1; staring at the screen

Furlough journal, day 3; missing the daily video calls