The Telegram has been a great asset to the City of Worcester and I hope that this continues.    The second I heard, however, that the New York Times wanted to sell the Telegram offices on Franklin Street a few years back, I saw this as a clear  exit strategy and was concerned about the future of the Telegram.    By the way, I feel the same about the UNUM move.

On the other hand, many others hailed the Telegram move to City Square as a commitment to Worcester?  Since this “commitment” the newspaper has been sold twice to John Henry and now to Halifax Media.  The most important thing about both of these transactions were that they involved private monies and did not contain one penny of tax-payer monies, a TIF or HUD guaranteed loan.

As a result none of us can tell them who to hire, fire or run their business.   No different then we can not tell a neighbor what color to paint their house.  If you are mad about what is going on, assemble a group, put together some money and buy the newspaper.   This does not minimize the fact the today was a bad day for Worcester.     I would personally like to thank the 28 people who were laid off today for their hard work/dedication and wish them all luck in the future.

As dues paying readers and subscription holders, we do have a right to criticize or commend their news coverage.   In fact these lay-offs was actually the first major story under new ownership.  If it were not for tweets from employees, who probably got little to no sleep this week-end and must have had a horrible morning, there was no coverage.   Maybe Halifax did not realize how much the readers have become attached to their employees and how concerned we all were #SupportTheTelegramStaff.

Excuse me, there was a tweet that the gallon of gas went down a penny.

Again good luck and thanks to all those employees who were laid off for and to Halifax Media, welcome to Woosta..