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Bad news travels fast, right? And we newsvolk specialize in tragedy, accidents, scandals and tears. So I can’t help myself. It’s my destiny….to regret to inform you that dozens of photogs, editors, production assistants, technicians, etc. etc. at KTTV-Channel 11, here in Los Angeles, got pink slips last Friday. In other words, I get home from two weeks in Germany and Belgium to learn about Black Friday. Deaths in the family, if you will. My TV station family.

About 20 percent of the staff – 99 people in all (or 66 upside down!!) have been laid off. That’s a lot of people in pain who can’t be cheered up by tales of my German adventures, no matter how hard I try. “Uh, so I know it’s going to be tough going on welfare, Bob, but let me cheer you up with my boring story about this cute little beer place in Leipzig.” Okay, my sickness is irrepressible – also untreatable. If there’s good news, it’s that my fallen colleagues will stay at work until Sept. 11 (does that ring a bell or what?).

Many of those getting the pink slip are very talented, and, of course, we eat our young in this laying-off-business (thanks to union rules). Seniority is protection. Put another way, if your butt sags, if your eyes don’t just have crow’s feet, but crow’s legs, heads, wings, etc. and if you need to be airlifted to an ICU for emergency Botox treatment, then you probably survived these cuts. It helps, too, if you can be seen several times a day playing solitaire in your edit bay, have boozy breath and are operating on auto-pilot (and don’t give a damn who knows it).

So we lost a lot of good young people, with energy and dreams (fortunately, not all of them dreamed of becoming anchors overnight or hobnobbing with movie stars while covering the entertainment beat).

But I digress. I’m thinking too much about others, not about myself.

Sooooo…I return from Germany (fascinating time, part of a visiting journalists program) to find the blood running in the gutters and one of the first things I get is a top-line (inner-office e-mail) from the news director saying simply – and ominously: “Please come by.”  That means – ‘Step into my office, I want to complain about something – or possibly fire you.’  When I finally saw the boss’ top-line, it was six hours old and when I looked up to see if he was in his office – of course he was out.

So then I was left to alone to develop an ulcer or two, waiting for him to return. Oh, well, c’est la vive (isn’t there a German expression for this?). After all, I only owe various people several hundred thousand dollars, have a tumor growing on the back of my head (seriously, what’s with these weird headaches) and have been ordered by the Los Angeles County Aesthetics Control Board not to appear in public until I’ve had the tire around my waist deflated.

Just as I am putting the finishing touches on my fantasy about becoming a middle-aged welfare dad, I hear the news director’s voice calling out to me. He’s in the room, behind me – and he’s not wearing an executioner’s hood. I take that as a good sign. I try to act plucky, tell him: “I got your top-line. Don’t you know after what happened here last Friday that getting a top-line like that scares the hell out of people.” He looks away, grimaces and says it has been an ugly couple of days, for sure. (His failure to look me in the eye is a bad sign, right?). I say: “Hey, before you give me the axe will you at least give me a warning so I can bring a grindstone in to sharpen the blade. It must be a little dull by now, what with all the usage. I want a clean-cut. Heh. Heh. Heh.” My lame laughter is not reciprocated.

In his office, he motions for me to sit down. Now is the critical time, these next few seconds. If he is really about to dish out bad news, he will reach under his desk to push an unseen button (he does this so deftly – without looking - sort of like Tiger Woods drilling a 10-foot putt). If he pushes the button, his office door closes shut. Whoossh – followed by a soft click. That’s the sound of The Door closing. Now you know there’s some serious s--- coming down when The Door is closed.. But…but this time, the boss’ phone rings. Next thing, you know, he’s tied up in an animated three-minute conversation about the cutbacks at KTTV and asking the person on the line if he’s got any openings in his shop that could be filled by those losing their jobs at KTTV (oh, great, I’m thinking…maybe I can get a job in Des Moines, doing live shots about the danger of heart-attacks to people shoveling snow).

Meantime, The Door remains – OPEN! Is this a good sign or is the boss just distracted? Christ these guys can yap a lot. That’s what news directors do all day. Talk about budgets, pet the anchors a little bit, fix personnel problems (Bill called in sick three days in a row but someone from graphics saw him playing golf one of those days…). Anyway, The Door is still – OPEN! Thank God for little mercies.

Now, he’s getting off the phone….I wait for The Door to close. It STAYS OPEN! But now his secretary steps into the office to ask a question. Don’t they realize my life is actually passing in front of my eyes (images of my dog slipping off his leash in the woods, of the time grandpa waded across a creek to kill that snake, the time I surprised a friend’s mother in her bathtub….Jesus! the stuff you think about at moments like this!!!). Anyway, the secretary leaves…and The Door remains – OPEN! My mind is racing – is this a good sign or a bad one? Maybe he is NOT going to shut The Door because – because he’s going to make a public spectacle of my dismissal. He’s going to behead me with the door OPEN! And then he’s going to triumphantly march into the newsroom, holding my dripping head in his hands…!!! What, what – in the name of God - is going on in his mind!!

Finally, he opens his mouth…pregnant pause, asks me about my trip to Germany. He’s a sadist! He’s dragging this on (is this beginning to sound like a bad version of Raskalnikov’s interview with the police in Crime and Punishment or what?), knowing full well that my life is passing in front of my eyes – and that the images are miserable, pathetic, wretched - basically like watching home movies shot by Diane Arbus. Finally, after more trivial chin-wagging (during which I develop a nervous tic over my left eye), my boss says…”About your contract, John, that’s coming up in August…”

The rest is pretty anti-climactic… hardly bears repeating. I’m going to be renewed (unless I do something outrageous in the interim – entirely possible!).  Now I can feel an attack of survivor’s regret syndrome coming on! Life is so unfair! But more about that later…

Footnote: I can already hear people saying these remarks are tasteless. Self-centered. I agree. And yet being in bad taste is part of being a reporter (it takes a healthy amount of bad taste to ask people uncomfortable questions, and if you can’t do that, so I tell young people, you should not be in journalism). But dark humor aside, it makes me angry to see the pain being visited on many colleagues (who are being laid-off) who I respect (and like) and see it happen even as some in this business continue to make tons of money and, perhaps worse, continue to make reckless, stupid decisions that not only diminish the integrity of journalism but also its bottom-line….

Other Schwada blogs? Click on the links to them (my profile photos) on the right side of this posting.