Charles Apple

From Paul Wallen, design director of the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale:

My position has been eliminated as part of a staff reduction at the Sun Sentinel.

I have seen this coming for quite a while, really since Tribune began a page sharing initiative shortly after we finished our redesign. And recently I’ve had a strong suspicion it was more a question of “when” I would be let go than “if.” So I’ve had time to brace for it and mentally prepare. I feel very fortunate in that regard.

My only regret is that I won’t be able to try to help the terrific design staff here through some difficult times. But I am at peace with this and am doing my best to look at it as an opportunity.

When one door closes, another opens. Everyone at the Sun Sentinel has been terrific to me and made this as easy an experience as it could be. I’ll miss our visuals team terribly, it’s such an incredibly talented group and they’re great people too. That’s the hardest part.

As for what’s next, I’m not sure. My wife and I are trying to look at all options right now and hope to get a plan together in a few weeks. If you like, I’ll give you an update when we get a better handle on where we’re going and what we’re doing.

We’d definitely like that, Paul. Thanks a bunch.

Paul has been at the Sun Sentinel for about two years. He started out as a journalist for the U.S. Navy in the late 1980s. In 1991, he became sports editor of the Marshall, Texas, News Messenger. In 1994, he was named graphics editor of the Evansville, Indiana, Press. He became design editor for a chain of suburban papers near Chicago in 1996.

He was a designer for The Virginian-Pilot from 1997 to 1999 and then for the Lexington, Ky., Herald-Leader from 1998 to 2000. He was design editor of the Baltimore Sun for three years before being named managing editor for visuals for the Lewiston, Maine, Sun Journal.

Under Paul’s guidance, the Sun Journal earned an incredible 22 awards in the 2007 Society for News Design contest. Paul’s young protégé, Megan Lavey, won six herself.

Paul leaped over to the west coast to be a sports designer for the San Diego Union-Tribune for a year before heading to Ft. Lauderdale in 2007.

It’s been a strange week for Paul. Or, as we like to call him around here, Peter. Back on Monday, Bob Norman of the Broward-Palm Beach New Times reported in his blog that Peter Wallen had been laid off. Here’s how it looked in our trusty Google alerts:

Naturally, we prepared a rush story. And as is our custom around here, we contacted Paul for confirmation and comment.

A very surprised Paul replied:

I’m in my office at work right now. So I’d have to deny it.

After conferring with Paul and realizing the embarrassment Norman’s premature story might cause Paul, we decided to hold off publishing until any action was official.

Which it now is.

Norman’s story — which he quickly corrected, for what it’s worth — was quite nice, in fact:

The 40-year-old Wallen, widely described as a quality designer and better guy, was hired away from the San Diego Union-Tribune by the Sentinel in April 2007.

These are just the opening salvos in a major wave of buyout/layoffs that is expected to be announced soon. Just weeks ago, Wallen was trying to assuage concerns of staffers working under him in the design department about a reorganization there. “If you have questions, concerns, or just want to vent please feel free to come see me,” Wallen wrote his underlings in an email on February 3. ”Also understand that things will come into focus better in the coming weeks.”

It’s a reminder how cruel this business is — one minute you’re reassuring the troops, the next you’re standing in the firing line.

Read Norman’s story here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Industry woes, Job changes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.