Re: How To Treat Your Layoff Victims Like Humans: This is definitely in the "what not to do" category.

Sarah Kaufman (portfolio) - used with permission

Our top story this week: Time Inc. filed to lay off 280 people in New York, and some have already been notified. Know of anyone else who's now seeking a new gig? Let us know. Maybe we can help.

Other notable and popular posts from the week:

Gannett, LexisNexis CEOs Among Most Hated In America

A Manager Says 'You Don't Really Want An Informational Interview.' We Say He's Wrong.

And don't forget to enter our contest to win a copy of "The Leap."

The comment of the week regards informational interviews over e-mail.

"Taylor M" wrote:

I don't know about the people who contacted that manager, but if I contacted someone for an informational interview, and they bumped me down to email because they were "too busy," I wouldn't bother contacting that manager either. I'd take my time to find someone who showed some interest. I'd also be a little turned off from their company.

And some weekend odds and ends:

• Chicago News Cooperative editor isn't taking a salary (via Romenesko)
  
  
• Jared Kushner Tried to Poach Sorkin For 'Observer' (via Silicon Alley Insider)
  
  
• Pioneer Press workers vote to begin concession negotiations (via Extra! Extra!)
  
  
• Account Service Thursdays: Josh Copeland’s Portfolio (via Please Feed The Animals)
  
  
• Cuts at Guardian's DC Office (via FishBowlDC)
  
  
• Hachette Names New Automotive Group CEO (via FishBowlNY)
  
  

flickr: Bright Meadow

If you're looking for inspiration for your own novel, NaNoWriMoed or not (ours is at 8500 words, and yes, we just want to brag), read this piece.

Highlights: "The Mezzanine" author Nicholson Baker writes in a half-asleep state starting at 4 a.m. Margaret Atwood says writers should put one hand on the table and the other in the air to get ideas (har, har). Junot Diaz writes "90 percent" of his books in his head. Lots of writers swear by color-coded index cards, longhand, a specific font, a specific brand of pen.

Any writing superstitions/traditions you swear by?

flickr: Caren's Photo Trip

The story: UX designer Dustin Curtis wrote a blog post criticizing American Airlines' web site (it is pretty awful, in our humble opinion, but why single out AA? There are plenty of bad web sites out there). And to his surprise, a designer contacted him back, explaining, in essence, "yes, our web site isn't that great, but there are a lot of levels of corporate hierarchy that a redesign has to go through, and it's not as easy as just making a mockup and running with it."

Big mistake.

"AA searched their exchange database for the text I posted, found the guy, and fired Mr. X on the spot. From what I have learned, they also threatened him with legal action if he spoke to me again. Apparently he broke his non-disclosure agreement by discussing the design process at AA," Curtis wrote.

Sorry, dude.

Your work e-mail is never, ever safe.

But in "Mr. X"'s defense, one might expect that a modicum of criticism would be tolerated, even by a behemoth of a company. Here's one of the uber-duber trade secrets he revealed:
"The group running AA.com consists of at least 200 people spread out amongst many different groups, including, for example, QA, product planning, business analysis, code development, site operations, project planning, and user experience."

Another trade secret: "We have a lot of UX improvements coming down the line, most of which we'll incorporate over the next 12 — 18 months as new projects go live. Some of our slated efforts include improved navigation; 16 column grid-based layouts; a lighter, more airy visual design; improved user interactions; and an increased transparency to fares and sales policies across the board."

We're torn between what to think here. On the one hand: boneheaded move, using your work e-mail. On the other hand: can you really fire a designer for giving away the secret of your airy design? Really?

Have y'all seen this yet? We just saw it cross our desk today. Technorati's massive survey of nearly 3,000 bloggers is completed, and the results have been tabulated. If you blog for money, are you in the majority? Has the number of companies employing corporate bloggers grown? Read on to find out.

72 percent of bloggers say they blog for fun, not money.
15 percent of bloggers do it to supplement their income, but don't consider their online musings to be a full-time job.
9 percent are full-time self-employed bloggers (and, in a telling statistic, 88 percent of those are Twitter users), and 4 percent are paid a salary to blog for their company.

Fourteen percent of all bloggers claim their household income is in the six figures, but obviously, there are some problems with that statistic: How much of that is from other members in the household? How much is from non-blogging activities?

The strangest statistic: 35 percent of bloggers claimed that they once were, or still are, employed by traditional media. Of those 35 percent, only 3 percent were actually blogging for their employers—the rest had left their traditional media jobs (not necessarily voluntarily, of course) or maintained blogs on the side.

More State of The Blogosphere is here.

Tucker Carlson's "The Daily Caller," the soon-to-launch right-leaning Huffington Post-style news site, is looking for a few good men and women, Politico reports.

He's hired at least one editor, Moira Bagley, formerly of the RNC, Roll Call, and New Majority, and he's posted an ad for an executive editor. Politico's Michael Calderone also reports that the site will be hiring some reporters and bloggers, one who will cover the White House.

We found a job ad for freelancers that Carlson apparently posted on journalismjobs.com last week, and then deleted. Here's the cached version, and here's the full text:

"Freelance writers wanted to cover politics and government for The Daily Caller, a new web-based news organization edited by Tucker Carlson. Writers will be paid on a profit share model. Please contact submissions@dailycaller.com."

If this ad is still accurate (and since it was taken down, we don't know yet), we have one question. Profit share, eh? With $3 million of V.C. money to throw around? Well, unlike HuffPo, at least he's planning to pay his writers.

MacHeist, the company that gives away Mac software to users who solve puzzles and crack codes on the 'net, has decided that this time around, they're skipping the puzzles and jumping straight to the free stuff.

This isn't a joke: anyone who goes to MacHeist.com between now and next Thursday and registers with the site can download six Mac applications valued at $154.


The six apps include:
Twitteriffic, a popular Twitter client
ShoveBox, a "clutter catcher" and organizer
WriteRoom, a minimalist word processor
TinyGrab, a quick-and-dirty screenshot sharing program (good for bloggers!)
Hordes of Orcs, because everyone needs a mind-numbing distraction every now and then

The final app is Mariner Write, a full-featured word processor, but the license code won't be unlocked until some more people sign up on the site.

If there's anything like MacHeist for PC users, we would love to hear about it, and if you've used any of these apps before, let us know. We will say that out of these six apps, the only one we've tried is ShoveBox and couldn't get the hang of it, but that was probably our fault.

The daylong Social Recruiting Summit from ERE.net is Monday, November 16, so just ten days away.

At the summit you'll hear from industry leaders on building social talent pipelines, debate the merits of Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts, with time for networking before, after, and between the sessions.

On the agenda: talks with Jessica Lee, recruiter for communications firm APCO Worldwide (and editor of Fistful of Talent), venture capitalist Fred Wilson, and social media strategists at all kinds of companies—Sodexho, Microsoft, and others.

The last summit—this summer in Mountain View, CA—sold out, so reserve your spot today if you're a recruiter trying to wrap your head around this stuff.

The unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent in October, finally cracking that 10 percent ceiling that politicians never thought we'd hit, and I for one am not happy about it.

Sure, with unemployment hovering at 9 point whatever percent for the last few months, squeaking past 10 isn't objectively a huge decline, but psychologically it's enormous.

There are now 15.7 million people without jobs in this country, and that only counts the ones who are still looking. Gave up on your search? Went back to school? Took a crappy low-paying job? That's another 11.7 million of you.

How about those bottoming out jobless claims?

"The operating environment for our businesses continues to improve and we are finishing the year with strong momentum," said Leslie Moonves, President and Chief Executive Officer, in the company's earnings release today.

Revenues for the quarter totaled $3.35 billion; income was $565.6 million compared to a $13.48 million loss last year this same quarter.

TV revenues and earnings were actually up this quarter, though radio saw lower profits and the companys' outdoor and interactive segments lost some money, due to soft ad markets.

Simon & Schuster, CBS's publishing arm, saw revenues increase by 2 percent thanks to Glenn Beck's "Arguing With Idiots".

Sorry, but the last couple days have just been so dang depressing that we had to lighten the mood somehow.

The folks at Pongo Resume bring us a quiz: name the industry the dirty-sounding-job comes from. They're all actual titles from the U.S. Dept. of Labor's Dictionary Of Occupational Titles.

TITLE: Bosom Presser
INDUSTRY: Military Services or Laundry & Related Services?

TITLE: Blind Hooker
INDUSTRY: Boot & Shoe or Forestry?

TITLE: Rubber Tester
INDUSTRY: Motion Picture or Rubber Goods?

Twelve more (and the answers) at Pongo's site, too..

Discovery Communications, LLC (aka the Discovery Channel) has let about 30 people go at its Investigation Discovery, Military Channel, and Science Channel, we hear (and BloggerNews.net confirms).

The company also reported its 3rd quarter results this week of profit of $95 million, a slide from $134 million in 3rd quarter 2008, hurt not by lower ad revenues but by higher costs.

We reached out to a DSC spokeswoman for comment, and we will update this post if/when we hear back.

The Knight Digital Media Center has spots for 20 working print journalists to learn the basics of multimedia journalism.

The weeklong intensive course covers: audio/video recording and editing, Flash graphics, digital cameras, Photoshop and web design concepts.

The deadline to apply is Monday, November 30, but if you miss that one, there's another program in May, and between those two, a February session on Web 2.0 journalism and social media.

The application process is intense, we hear, so if you're interested, get started now.

And we wouldn't be a mediabistro blog if we didn't promo our own courses, but simple math dictates that not everybody reading this is going to get into the Knight program (twenty slots! Yikes!). If you're interested in a less-competitive digital edge, try one of these courses on:

Flash for Journalists (New York, NY)

Develop Your Own Online Media Platform (Chicago, IL)

Writing and Editing for the Web Essentials(Boston, MA)

Writing and Editing for the Web Essentials(New York, NY)

Transition from Print to Online Magazine Writing (Los Angeles, CA)

Social Networking for Media Professionals (New York, NY)