Weiss shocked at BusinessWeek layoffs

Gary Weiss, a former BusinessWeek reporter and currently a Forbes.com columnist, writes that he’s shocked with the editors and reporters leaving the magazine.

Weiss wrote, “These are all long-time people, in fact, and I assume that their salaries might have been a reason for their being so suddenly expendable.

“I really am beginning to wonder what BW’s management is thinking when it got rid of these people while retaining, inter alia, ‘celebrity’ columnists of questionable value to the reader. What kind of direction is BW taking?

“This is not excess flab being trimmed. Some of the early layoffs shed extraneous layers of management and people who had outlived their usefulness. But these latest layoffs/buyouts are cutting into meat.

“This does not bode well for BW. In fact, I’ll take the thought one step further: there is something terribly wrong afoot at that magazine.”

Read more here.