Several people pointed me to the local angle to published reports of large layoffs at Gannett’s Westchester News Journal, where 50 of the newsroom’s 140 positions are being eliminated and the rest of employees will have to “reapply” for jobs.

According to the New York Times:

The Journal News, a Westchester area newspaper owned by Gannett, told all 288 of its news and advertising sales employees on Wednesday that their jobs were being eliminated and they would need to apply for redefined positions by the end of the week.

After the redefined jobs are filled, there will be 20 fewer positions in advertising and 50 fewer positions in news, reducing the newsroom staff (which includes Web employees) by more than a quarter.

It seems the guy in charge is former Honolulu Advertiser publisher Mike Fisch.

A copy of Fisch’s memo announcing the job cuts and reapplication process was published by Jim Romenesko at PoynterOnline. An item at Gawker.com has additional information and comments.

Dalton Tanonaka, the newsman turned candidate who pleaded guilty to campaign fraud stemming from his election campaigns in 2002-2004 and was sentenced to 3 months in prison, managed to quickly get back on the air as a news anchor.

On Jakarta’s Metro TV. I saw this article from late 2006 describing his re-entry into the news biz.

His name came up when Blogger Extraordinaire Ryan Ozawa emailed with the subject: “Dalton Tanonaka’s prostate“, and a link. Discretion advised?

The second time around, the University of Hawaii dropped its claims of “attorney-client privilege” and provided electronic copies of the arbitrator’s decision in the recent contract interpretation dispute with the faculty union, and the “post-hearing brief” filed on behalf of the university in an unsuccessful attempt to defend its legal position.

This followed my written request pursuant to Hawaii’s Fair Information Practices Act (Chapter 92F HRS).

It’s interesting to note that the university’s legal brief was not prepared by its own staff of in-house attorneys headed by Darilyn Lendio. Instead, UH was represented by the private law firm of Torkildson, Katz, Moore, Hetherington & Harris.

Now I’ll have to find out what this bit of private legal work cost the university.