Dell refuses to divulge number for layoffs to reporter

Scott Sexton, a columnist for the Winston-Salem Journal, writes Tuesday about the difficulty one of the paper’s reporters had in getting the exact number of employees work at a Dell plant in the area after layoffs were announced.

Sexton writes, “In the days after the announcement of layoffs, finding out how many people worked at Dell was nearly impossible. Media outlets reported that the plant employed 1,150. Mayor Allen Joines, the head cheerleader for the Dell deal, said that 1,400 people worked there. So which is it?

“Ask a simple question, and sometimes you get an idiotic answer.

“‘Which is the correct number for Dell employees at the Forsyth plant?’ Richard Craver, a business reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal, asked a corporate spokesmen in an e-mail Friday.

“‘We are no longer providing specific site-employment totals,’ replied Dell flack David Frink.

“Pressed a second time, Frink shot this back: ‘We are not engaging in additional dialogue on this subject.'”

Read more here.