----- Original Message ----- From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 11:48 AM Subject: Re: Scouted: CNN's Brown played golf through shuttle story
> At 11:43 AM 2/4/2003 -0600 Dan Minette wrote: > >Why? One of the assumptions about high paying jobs like that is that > >vacations are subject to immediate cancellation when a critical need > >arises. If he is important enough to lure away from ABC, he is important > >enough to need to cancel a golf game. > > Clearly, it wasn't in his contract. In the real world of business, John, there is an implicit contract as well as an explicit contract. > And for a non-developing news event, he hardly was essential enough for him > to need to cancel his vacation, all so that he could read news to a > telephone camera hours after the news was over. Coverage of stories such as these can significantly affect long term viewership. IIRC, CNN made itself a multi-billion dollar company based on its coverage of the Gulf War. Team players are there when the company needs them. Non-team players are expendable. That is so fundamental to the culture of business that it goes without saying. Now, that's not true for hourly workers, and its not true for union workers. But, for engineers, if there was an even, the handling of which would significantly affected the profitability of a company, they would be expected to put in long hours to address the event. Key players would be expected to cancel vacations. The company would reimburse the key player, of course, but (s)he would be expected to be there. Anyone who answered by pointing out that leaving vacation to cover a shuttle disaster was not specifically mentioned in the contract would be considered a shipboard lawyer. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
