Last week, during a meeting at the News & Observer in Raleigh, there unfolded a moment that would have had the populist in you cheering lustily: A top corporate executive was called out by an employee.

The executive, Howard Weaver, is the head of news operations for McClatchy, the California-based newspaper company which owns the N&O and enough other papers to make it the country’s second-largest chain. He was in Raleigh to visit with the news staff, but his timing was terrible. The journalists had been informed just days earlier that the N&O’s revenue is running $1 million per month behind the previous year’s income, and that staff reductions may be in the works.

That bit of bad news was only the latest for McClatchy. The company is deeply in debt and losing billions of dollars on its operations (go here for the gruesome details). Also, a stock price that in March 2005 was $75 per share closed at less than $10 yesterday, causing the company’s market capitalization to now stand at $800 million. By way of comparison, let me note that the N&O alone was worth $373 million when McClatchy bought it in 1995.

In short, McClatchy is hurting. Expenses are getting squeezed, staffers are being pushed to do more, whole sections of its papers are being eliminated, morale is miserable, etc.

All that is the background information to help put the following fact in its proper context: When Weaver visited Raleigh last week, he stayed in the most sumptuous hotel in the Triangle — and one staffer called him on it.

I heard this tale from several different N&O journalists who attended the meeting, and their accounts all matched up. It seems that Weaver spoke for a while, then opened the floor to questions. Joe Neff, a nationally known investigative reporter who clearly had done some sleuthing on Weaver’s visit, spoke up to remind Weaver that he was addressing a roomful of people who’ve endured endless cost-cutting, seen the paper shrink, been told that positions may be eliminated, and now even have to pay for home delivery of their own newspaper. With that preamble out of the way, Neff then posed this question:

“When you checked out of the Umstead Hotel and Spa this morning, what was the tab?”

Weaver knew he’d been caught out in the open. His only defense was that he’d gotten a good discount from the Umstead’s normal rate, which is something in the neighborhood of $400 a night. (Remember, this ain’t Manhattan. That’s real money in North Carolina.)

However uncomfortable that encounter may have been for Weaver, he actually was the beneficiary of an act of mercy. Another reporter was prepared to drill him on a proposal contained in the proxy statement recently sent out to McClatchy shareholders — specifically, that more money be made available for bonuses to top executives. But that question didn’t get asked, presumably because the point had already been made:

Cost-cutting is only for the little people.

UPDATE

The server farm that hosts this site must have been invaded by locusts on Tuesday, because Words Assembled Well wasn’t available for most of the day. As a result, I’m leaving this column on the front page through Wednesday. Also, below is Howard Weaver’s response, which I reprint in full. (And I should say here that when I worked with Howard I found him to be a good-natured, stand-up guy. The fact that this piece distresses him is proof that he’s got a soul. I just hope he remembers that honest news reporting sometimes stings when you’re the subject — a lesson journalists can never learn too many times.)

I told Joe I paid $210 (and showed him the receipt). The downtown Sheraton where I usually stay quoted us $179, but because I was spending most of the day at McClatchy Interactive, where the offices are closer to the Umstead, I would have had to take a taxi in and back from the airport, which would have cost MORE.

I know this because I checked the prices in advance. I stay at hotels approved by our Shared Services division for use by all employees traveling on business.

I’m writing this from the hotel where I stay in Washington DC — the Hilton Garden Inn.

By the way, I wrote back to Howard and told him that if the N&O’s editor won’t put him up the next time he visits Raleigh, he can bunk at my house at no cost.

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