THE magazine industry says it had a good 2004, but you wouldn’t know that from the Christmas bonus Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore handed out recently.
The company is once again banning Christmas parties, and Moore recently sent around her annual note to the 12,000 employees of the nation’s biggest publishing company telling them about the company’s year-end gift.
This year it is a $100 gift certificate to The Container Store.
Some insiders grumbled – don’t they always.
At least one staffer defended it. “It’s not like they took something away, like we were getting $5,000 bonuses and now we’re not.”
Last year’s “bonus” was a $100 gift certificate to Saks. The year before it was to Target.
Time Inc. spokesman Peter Costiglio said, “It’s not really a Christmas bonus and it’s not indicative of the year or the business environment. It’s just a nice gesture that Ann Moore started three years ago.”
That was when Moore banned the big Christmas parties that had been a Time Inc. staple for decades.
There is little grumbling about the no-party edict.
“I think people are just getting used to that being the way it is,” shrugged one insider.
In her note, Moore asked staffers to make sure the office had their correct home addresses – the gift certificates are mailed out in mid-December.
But there was a gesture that even the grumbler conceded was nice. The bonus is taxable, but Moore said the bonus “will be grossed up so that Time Inc. pays the federal taxes.”
Just remember – you have to spend it in one place.
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Newsday political columnist Marie Cocco is not a union member, but she told Media Ink after our last column that she was offered the same voluntary buyout package that the 430 unionized workers are receiving.
She expects to accept it, but she says she is also negotiating to continue to write a political column for Newsday.
“It will be on a work for hire basis,” she said. “There should be no break in my column once this is finalized.”
That means it will contribute to the headcount reduction in the Washington bureau and the overall staff reduction of 100, including 50 on the editorial side.
Cocco’s byline won’t disappear. “It’s not finalized,” she said. “I think everyone’s intention is to close out all these deals by the end of the calendar year.”
She expects her column to continue to be syndicated through the Washington Post Writers Group.
Meanwhile, at least one reporter says he won’t go.
Newsday’s aerospace reporter Jim Bernstein reportedly stood on his desk and told co-workers, “I’m not leaving.”
So far, no other Norma Rae imitators have sprung up in the newsroom. That could change as the Dec. 1 voluntary buyout deadline nears. New Editor John Mancini may yet have to talk the whole newsroom down from the desks.