A Bad Week at the Weekly

Ordinarily, I keep pretty quiet about personnel matters at the Weekly. But the economic times we're living in are anything but ordinary. They're extraordinarily shitty, in fact. Which means that, all across the country, in all sorts of businesses (but especially the news business) extraordinarily shitty things are happening to good people.

This week, the grim state of the economy caught up with our newsroom in excruciating fashion. The staff box of next week's print edition of OC Weekly will have some significant changes. Rich Kane, the paper's longtime Music Editor who returned as Managing Editor starting in the summer of 2007, is no longer on staff. Vickie Chang, who has served the paper in a variety of positions before her promotion to Staff Writer this past summer, will move to the part-time Clubs Editor position, replacing Nate Jackson, who is no longer on staff. Amanda Parsons will remain the paper's Editorial Assistant, but the position has changed from full-time to part-time

I've discussed with all of these talented people the possibility of contributing freelance work, so don't be surprised to see their bylines throughout the paper.

Everything else I might say here would probably come off as maudlin or self-pitying, so I'll just shut the fuck up again. Here's hoping for a much, much better New Year.