Laid-Off CNN.com Live Producer Lets Fly On Blog

Last Thursday WebNewser broke the story that CNN.com Live was shutting down its anchor-driven newscasts, resulting in the layoff of the four main anchors and "several production staffers." One of those staffers was CNN.com Live senior producer Jenny Wilburn, who posted about her layoff both Friday and today. She doesn't name names, but she's pissed. Here's some of her Friday post, titled, "The blog returns!!! RIP CNN.com/Live or Pipeline. Whatever you want to call it." Yes, I got laid off. It happens to all good CNN'ers after a while. We expect it. Along with the cranky HR rep who refuses to let you say goodbye to your friends. So now I have over 5 months of severance on my hands and absolutely NO desire to look for a job. Does that make me a deadbeat? I don't care. Here's the thing. Getting laid off doesn't really matter to me because I didn't actually like that job very much. Well, I liked the job, love news, but I worked with some really unpleasant people who made work not so much fun. In my career, I've worked with some of the biggest anchors in TV news, I've worked with some of the most dramatic producers in the world...and yet, this job was the most stressful and ridiculous gig I've ever had. The stuff I've put up with over the last 4 years made sorority rush seem like the most genuine and honest experience I've ever had. And today (from I just don't get it): Let's start with this. I'm not sad that I'm not working at CNN. I miss some of the people, others not so much. That's pretty normal. That said, there are ways to know what is happening (I'm a journalist, after all), to know how things are inside the building. If there weren't, there are plenty of TV insider websites who have everything you need to know about anything. ... I don't know what my managers were thinking, and I don't know what the future goals of my former company are. I do know the feedback that is out there. I know that regular viewers are upset and angered by the decision. I've seen the comments on sites about how dissatisfied people are with the changes - both on the site and with my department. In an email to staffers (first published on WebNewser) announcing the layoffs, CNN.com SVP KC Estenson wrote: Throughout the process of imagining, developing and launching our new direction, defining a new video voice was a key cornerstone of that strategy. In building out that strategy, we took a hard look at the opportunities afforded us by both live and on-demand video on CNN.com. To that end, beginning tomorrow, we will no longer produce anchor-driven, continuous live video programming on CNN.com; and instead, are shifting resources to create a unit focused on streaming major live events, producing video packages especially for CNN.com and increasing our overall on-demand offering. Back on September 9, WebNewser reported that CNN.com Live would change its name and reduce the number of hours it streams live anchored news.

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Laid-Off CNN.com Live Producer Lets Fly On Blog

Chris Nerney

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Chris Nerney