BuzzFeed | The Washington Post
Reuters media critic Jack Shafer tells Poynter Reuters let him go.
“I’m fine,” Shafer told Poynter. “My philosophy is that the job belongs to the employer,” he said. “When they want to do something else with the money, that’s their prerogative.”
He announced his departure on Twitter.
Many thanks to all @Reuters for 3-plus heavenly years. As Stanley Kubrick once said, "The only problem is, what to do next."— Jack Shafer (@jackshafer) November 19, 2014
Matthew Zeitlin reported in BuzzFeed Wednesday that Reuters planned to lay off as many as 55 people.
Shafer said he wasn’t conversant with HR terminology and that Reuters removed him in a “very respectful and professional manner.”
As for his future plans, Shafer says he plans to “get Fugazi back together as my next trick.”
Shafer’s departure signals a shift from the current Web strategy at Reuters, Erik Wemple writes:
Despite all its scoops on business and finance, it has had trouble figuring out how to adapt key business products — subscriptions and financial information terminals — to the digital age.
Shafer was Slate’s media columnist but was laid off from that job in 2011. “Everybody in our business has to see this coming,” he said at the time, adding that journalists should look “both ways when they cross the street.”
