Let Them Eat Cookies
Why Inky staffers are feeling crumby
When Amanda Bennett came to the Inquirer in 2003, reporters were excited by their new editor’s résumé: a career at the Wall Street Journal, authorship of thoughtful books, two Pulitzers. But since then, she has drifted out of view. (Staffwide e-mails slowed to a trickle in 2004 without explanation.) With newsroom enthusiasm waning, the editor has turned to a grandmatronly solution: baking cookies.
After the newspaper eliminated 15 percent of its employees last fall, Bennett, 53, invited the remaining staff to join her for a chat over “milk and cookies” near the copy desk. “No agenda,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Just Fig Newtons and Oreos.” A few days later, Bennett sent another invitation to the staff, this time for a holiday party of “punch and cookies” at her Queen Village home. Invitees were asked to register for one of five shifts — an effort, she wrote, to help move the large staff through her small house. Plus, “It will also let me know how many cookies to bake!”
When Bennett held a similar party in 2004, reporters rushed to sign up; this year, it appears few did. Two days after the initial invite, Bennett sent a reminder and an increasingly desperate appeal for RSVPs, and two days after that, a message headed “last chance” — “to tell me your favorite kind of cookie.” Attendees were treated to alcoholic punch and a wide variety of cookies described by one reporter as “fine, but not remarkable. And one would think, with all the baking she’s been doing lately, that they would be.”
After the newspaper eliminated 15 percent of its employees last fall, Bennett, 53, invited the remaining staff to join her for a chat over “milk and cookies” near the copy desk. “No agenda,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Just Fig Newtons and Oreos.” A few days later, Bennett sent another invitation to the staff, this time for a holiday party of “punch and cookies” at her Queen Village home. Invitees were asked to register for one of five shifts — an effort, she wrote, to help move the large staff through her small house. Plus, “It will also let me know how many cookies to bake!”
When Bennett held a similar party in 2004, reporters rushed to sign up; this year, it appears few did. Two days after the initial invite, Bennett sent a reminder and an increasingly desperate appeal for RSVPs, and two days after that, a message headed “last chance” — “to tell me your favorite kind of cookie.” Attendees were treated to alcoholic punch and a wide variety of cookies described by one reporter as “fine, but not remarkable. And one would think, with all the baking she’s been doing lately, that they would be.”
Originally published in Philadelphia magazine, February 2006
