Forbes Layoffs: Can't We All Just Get Along?

You’ve probably read that Forbes has completed the inevitable merging of its print and online staffs, and laid off 19 people as a result. While we should all feel sympathy for those who were laid off, it’s hard to have much sympathy for those who fought the merging of the print and online staffs for so long. As Valleywag rightly chortles, “It only took them a decade.”

Several reports today have said there was constant friction between the print and online staffs, going back years. Said Keith Kelly in his Media Ink column in The New York Post:

“The dot-com side would barely acknowledge the stories that appeared in the new issues of the magazine. And the magazine side editors complained that they were frequently fielding complaints from companies for thinly-sourced items that appeared on the Web.”

To that, the only reasonable response is: get over it. It’s more than time for journalists to view themselves as simply journalists, rather than falling into predictable factions, finding reasons to look down at their “fellow” journalists on the other side of the digital divide. When times were flush, both sides had the luxury of being able to engage in such back-biting — it made life at the office so much more interesting! — but now it’s an economic imperative at Forbes and elsewhere to stop it already. No media organization can afford to duplicate efforts, with two reporters covering the same thing for two different media. Some jobs will go by the wayside in the process, and that’s sad. But in streamlining the editorial process, others will be saved.