The Suburban Journals reporter who was shot while covering the killings at the Kirkwood City Council last year has been laid of by Lee Enterprises, which owns the Journals and the Post-Dispatch. And, the guy was the Web editor. So he’s working in new media and took a bullet during a crazy breaking news situation … and he still gets laid off.
From an RFT story:
Smith was the online editor for the West County and South County editions. “I thought I was OK since the Internet and the website are the future, and performance-wise I was doing fine. My family is obviously really not happy that I took a bullet for a business. But I guess in these economic times that isn’t enough to save you.”
Smith was a metro reporter covering Webster Groves and Kirkwood at the time of the February, 2008, Kirkwood shootings and went to Kirkwood City Hall to cover what he thought would be a regular City Council meeting. It was the night that Cookie Thornton stormed in with a .44-caliber Magnum and in a mere one minute and 32 seconds killed five people — two council members, the city’s public works director and two police officers — before turning the gun on himself.
Smith took one of Thornton’s bullets in the right hand. He immediately pulled out his cell phone with his left hand to call the Journals. “I said they’d need to send somebody else, because I’d been shot in the hand.”
Smith spent several days in the hospital and has since undergone two surgeries to repair his shattered hand. He has been interviewed by numerous news outlets, including NBC Nightly News and other national news outlets — generating headlines for the Journals.
Crazy. It’s just not safe to be working in media right now.
