Mike DeVries
Doug Moe
The Wisconsin State Journal has launched a new round of staff cuts that look more like slashes, laying off four staffers and announcing that three key departures will go unfilled.
Among the layoff victims are columnist Doug Moe, a veteran Madison journalist whom the paper hired away from the jointly owned Capital Times in 2008; sports columnist Andy Baggot, who has written for the paper since 1978; and sports columnist Dennis Semrau, who has covered local prep sports and the Milwaukee Brewers for decades. Brandon Storlie, who joined the paper in 2009 and has worked as a reporter and sports copy editor, has also been laid off.
Sources says these layoffs, announced to staff late Thursday afternoon by State Journal editor John Smalley, were not voluntary.
Andy Baggot
Smalley did not promptly respond to an emailed request for comment.
In addition, staff was told that the State Journal will not be refilling the positions of Dee Hall, who has left the paper to work for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism; reporter Dan Simmons, who covers higher education; and part-time books editor Jeanne Kolker. Simmons apparently agreed to be laid off.
Dennis Semrau
“Yesterday was my last at the State Journal,” Simmons wrote on his Facebook page this morning. "Some great colleagues who certainly weren't planning to be jobless are out of work. And as always the community gets worse with fewer scribes to watch for shenanigans and tell great stories.”
Moe, whose resume includes freelancing for Isthmus, serving as editor of Madison Magazine and writing a series of books, is widely regarded as among the best writers in Madison, with vast contacts and community knowledge. Baggot, Semrau and Simmons also have broad followings and deep experience covering their beats. And Kolker almost single-handedly covered the local book beat, in a city where there is a great deal of interest in books.
But in fact, experience is exactly what papers seeking to trim staff seem most determined to lose, because longer-tenured staffers receive slightly higher salaries. In February, the Scripps Washington Bureau laid off journalists including four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Sydney Freedberg and two-time Polk award winner Marcia Myers. Other Pulitzer Prize winners to get the ax in recent years include Chicago Sun-Times photographer John White, San Diego Union-Tribune reporter David Hasemyer, and Newsweek/Daily Beast fashion journalist Robin Givhan.
The layoffs at the State Journal are part of a company-wide belt-tightening. Sources say The Capital Times has also asked for layoff volunteers. And it is unclear whether the paper intends to fill the gap left by the recent voluntary departure of business reporter Mike Ivey. “No comment,” wrote editor Paul Fanlund, in response to a question on this.
George Hesselberg, a longtime State Journal reporter, lamented the cuts.
“Any loss to newsrooms at the State Journal and The Capital Times is a loss to the community.” Hesselberg said. “It means fewer experienced eyes, and that’s not good for the community.”
Requests for comment to the laid-off and departing State Journal staffers were not immediately returned.
Simmons, in his Facebook post, said he now has “the great fortune” of being able to spend more time with wife Mary Spicuzza, a former State Journal reporter who now writes for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and “proceed with my academic research testing the limits of a hammock when faced with repeated, prolonged exposure to a slightly overweight 39-year-old male.” He urges his friends and fans to not “cry for me. It’s the others at my paper who deserve our tears and prayers and help.”
