The news out of the new publisher (the old publisher's son) and the new editor (the current Bay City editor) is that the Journal will become a morning newspaper when it emerges as a three-day-a-week paper in June.
That's good, just 10 years too late. The same geniuses who kept the paper afternoons have finally decided it is time to go mornings. Sadly, those same geniuses are still around running things.
Once again, Booth leadership is maintaining pretty much the same newsroom structure as was in place during the free fall. The main editor will be gone, but his hand picked (Booth doesn't post promotions) assistant editors simply move up a notch.
Again, no one else was sought to apply for those positions although there are a number of skilled people in the newsroom who could do a superior job of leading that newspaper.
This isn't a knock on the people who hold those positions, it's a knock on Booth which refuses to open the promotion process to find the best people available.
Apparently Booth will never feel the need to hold a competitive process for promotions, too risky for those who hold high positions. And they wonder why they are in the fix they are in. If any other agency or company had a promotion policy this devoid of merit, any good newspaper would write about it as the scandal it is.
The paper is going to reach out (again) to hear what the community wants in a newspaper. I can tell you in a word. News. They want news, the good, the bad and the ugly, but trust me that is not going to happen with the new leadership. We are going to have "themed" newspapers.
I know I held out hope for the new editor, but not after what I heard about last week's meeting.
Reporters were told they will now have to copy edit their own copy on days when no copy editors will be working. OK, copy editors and former copy editors, what do think of that?
Oh, and reporters were told to once again bring their ideas to management. That's what we were told when the previous editor took over and he listened to exactly no one, but those select few who told him what he wanted to hear.
For those of us who gave him an honest assessment of what needed to be done at the paper he simply ignored us. Actually he didn't ignore us, he just gave us that knowing smirk that let you know that he was going to do absolutely nothing about what you told him.
My honest advice to those left behind, do not go to management with your ideas of what needs to be done, at least not if you value your job and future with the company. They simply do not want to hear bad news about how they are running things.
Any good ideas you give them will simply be stolen and credited to someone else anyway.
The results of this meeting was pretty much yada, yada, yada. It's all been heard and said before, it's just now being told to employees who have been told they are on the way out or will soon be working for less, much less.
By the way, when will the editors announce how much of a pay cut they are all taking. It might help morale to know that the editors are sharing in those 25 to 50 percent pay cuts.
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5 comments:
Reporters editing their own copy. Another brilliant idea from the minds of Mr. Breeze and his Princess. Actually, in BC it may be a vast improvement over the two of them editing copy. But who's going to call the lawyers?
BC's AME for Bay County quit last week because he can't afford to live on what he was offered. A BC copy editor was hired in Kalamazoo and told at his interview that the biggest pay cut there was 14.6 percent.
It's far from over. By the end of the year, after giving the new "model" six months to work, BC, Saginaw and Flint will meld into one paper or quit publishing altogether.
Sad, Sad, Sad, sounds a lot like GM management, You see where they are..
The "future of management" matter was brought up at our meeting on March 23. It was a lot like someone farting in church.
And, yes to the commenter's reference to GM management. Many similarities, indeed. A bunch of management wannabes in charge, trying to cover their collective butts and maintain as much power as possible for as long as they can.
And, really, this is all about power. Newhouse had it for years, and these papers had it for years. They had it editorially, and they had it in terms of advertising. Now, they have none of it.
And -- oh, trust me, this stings them -- they no longer have power over employees to talk. Internally, there was no voice to bring to light all the stupidity taking place within the walls. Bring it up to a superior? With THIS company??? Gimme a second . . . I think I've got Kevorkian's number here somewhere.
But now, there are outlets, including this one (THANK YOU, Jim!). This site is read by local site management, it's read by the grunts -- past and present -- and I have reason to believe it's now being read by the East Coast boys. More importantly, it's being read more and more by members of the communities, who are finally learning a little bit about their papers.
And, trust me, there will be more outlets in the future.
Now, the only power the company owns is the ability to take care of their own, managers promoting those who kissed butt for a long, long time. (Ha! My verification word below is "Coddl." Heh, heh)
I think I already know the outcome of this latest chapter of "How to Run a Newspaper Into the Ground."
If it didn't affect the lives of so many, it'd be high comedy.
As it stands, it is tragic.
Reporters editing their own copy. ... Now that's comedy gold, baby!
Oh, wait. They're serious about that. This former Boothie and Oakland Presser is trying to hold back my laughter.
Someone might want to inform the geniuses who came up with that idea that copy editing is more than just running a spell-check.
Too often, especially recently, the papers have generally been pretty bad even WITH the copy editors they've had.
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