Mark Heisler, the venerable NBA beat writer and 32-year LA Times veteran, found out he was laid off while on vacation. His write-up of the experience (including being locked out of the parking structure and logged off the newspaper’s computer system) when he returned to clean out his desk, is shared at LA Observed. In it, he recalls the deep-bench sports glory days of the paper’s Jim Murray era that includes a lineup too long to list here, but whose young “hotshots” included the Chronicle’s Scott Ostler and the Mercury News’ Tim Kawakami. Nonetheless, Heisler says:
I should point out that, believe it or not, I'm not angry about this. At 67, I was only going to work one more season and they just gave me the whole thing off, with pay, through April.
All that notwithstanding, I'm sitting in my car, behind the closed gate, marveling at the company's efficiency, thinking, 'If only we were as good at newspapering as we are at dumping people...."
