(Note: A loyal reader and sometime commenter sent me the following via E-mail. I think it is worthy of posting as its own item. The words are not mine, but I give it a big "ditto." The writer is posting under the name Lamont Cranston. If you are under 50, you'll need to look it up. If you're over 50 and are scratching your heads: "The Shadow Knows." Or maybe the writer is referring to a great Blues band.)
Jim -- Longtime opinion page editor Mike Riha will certainly be missed at the Flint Journal; at least the editor had the decency to acknowledge his long service to the paper.
While Mike's retirement will be obvious to anyone reading the editorial page in the weeks and months ahead, readers paying attention to the news columns will likely notice the disappearance of the bylines of veteran reporters Ken Palmer and Paul Janczewski.
These of course are two more of the senior reporters who follow the long trail of veteran writers and editors taking buyouts offered by Journal management, leaving large holes in the paper's coverage of Flint news.
Ken has routinely covered big stories of all sorts and filled in wherever the ever-shrinking news department needed him -- on police beat, in the suburbs, at Flint schools and practically everywhere else. Paul, also the co-author of a bestselling true crime book, has been a top-notch courts reporter for years. Both were respected and trusted by people throughout Genesee County. Good luck, you guys.
Like so much about the newspaper these days, you can take it to the bank that the paper's coverage of the courts will be a shadow of what it was. This is nothing short of amazing since the paper's management knows that readers like and pay attention to news about court cases. But the brain trust that runs the Journal's newsroom doesn't care about the courts, so you can pretty much say goodbye to thorough coverage of the most important cases.
The staffers that remain at the Journal know well that the loss of these two longtime, hard-working reporters means even more work and longer hours for them. Don't worry, kids, the Journal editors are putting up a fun bulletin board for you to put pictures up of your spouses and children! Wow, that should really make the Journal newsroom a fun place to work.
Of course, the Journal editors are telling this ever-smaller and less experienced news staff that they are doing a great job at covering all the stories, filling in the gaps and doing everything that the veteran reporters of days gone by used to do, but that's patently false and the reporters know it.
The losses at the Journal this week go beyond Mike and Ken and Paul; though the public doesn't see their names, Jennifer, a veteran copy editor and Michael, top-notch graphics design editor, also left. So if you wonder why you're seeing pages that look like crap, layout-wise, and you notice even more mistakes in print, well, this is why.
A handful of new people have been hired to replace the many experienced vets that are leaving, but true to Flint Journal form, the bosses have managed to hire a couple of real doozies who are already establishing themselves as true pygmies in the talent-and-ability department. Way to go, Journal bosses!
Even longtime readers of the Journal are noticing and complaining about what's happened to the newspaper, but the editor continues to fail to tell the readers what's really going on. Stay tuned in to Jim's blog, it's the only way your going to know.
Lamont Cranston
While Mike's retirement will be obvious to anyone reading the editorial page in the weeks and months ahead, readers paying attention to the news columns will likely notice the disappearance of the bylines of veteran reporters Ken Palmer and Paul Janczewski.
These of course are two more of the senior reporters who follow the long trail of veteran writers and editors taking buyouts offered by Journal management, leaving large holes in the paper's coverage of Flint news.
Ken has routinely covered big stories of all sorts and filled in wherever the ever-shrinking news department needed him -- on police beat, in the suburbs, at Flint schools and practically everywhere else. Paul, also the co-author of a bestselling true crime book, has been a top-notch courts reporter for years. Both were respected and trusted by people throughout Genesee County. Good luck, you guys.
Like so much about the newspaper these days, you can take it to the bank that the paper's coverage of the courts will be a shadow of what it was. This is nothing short of amazing since the paper's management knows that readers like and pay attention to news about court cases. But the brain trust that runs the Journal's newsroom doesn't care about the courts, so you can pretty much say goodbye to thorough coverage of the most important cases.
The staffers that remain at the Journal know well that the loss of these two longtime, hard-working reporters means even more work and longer hours for them. Don't worry, kids, the Journal editors are putting up a fun bulletin board for you to put pictures up of your spouses and children! Wow, that should really make the Journal newsroom a fun place to work.
Of course, the Journal editors are telling this ever-smaller and less experienced news staff that they are doing a great job at covering all the stories, filling in the gaps and doing everything that the veteran reporters of days gone by used to do, but that's patently false and the reporters know it.
The losses at the Journal this week go beyond Mike and Ken and Paul; though the public doesn't see their names, Jennifer, a veteran copy editor and Michael, top-notch graphics design editor, also left. So if you wonder why you're seeing pages that look like crap, layout-wise, and you notice even more mistakes in print, well, this is why.
A handful of new people have been hired to replace the many experienced vets that are leaving, but true to Flint Journal form, the bosses have managed to hire a couple of real doozies who are already establishing themselves as true pygmies in the talent-and-ability department. Way to go, Journal bosses!
Even longtime readers of the Journal are noticing and complaining about what's happened to the newspaper, but the editor continues to fail to tell the readers what's really going on. Stay tuned in to Jim's blog, it's the only way your going to know.
Lamont Cranston
(Thanks Lamont, I couldn't have said it better.)
1 comment:
When the Flint Journal goes out of business, maybe the editor can get a job with the Pentagon.
"Nothing will change at the Flint Journal ... The troop surge in Iraq is working ... nothing will change at the Flint Journal ... The troop surge in Iraq is working..."
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