Friday, July 24, 2009

AnnArbor.com staff listed on site

During the run-up to the AnnArbor.com launch, the Chief Content Czar told us there would be 30-35 editorial employees.

The new staff list shows 31, which includes the President & CEO (which beat does he cover?); the Chief Content Czar (which beat does he cover?); the Executive Vice President (which beat does she cover?); and a shared administrative assistant for the President & CEO and Executive Vice President and the Chief Content Czar has his own administrative assistant.

There are seven news reporters and seven sports reporters. The site doesn't tell us if they are all full-time or part-time and I don't know. We already know that full, or part-time they are making less than former staff members at the Ann Arbor News were making.

The staff list has 22 people involved in ad sales or production. On the old AnnArbor.com site there was little information about who was getting those jobs. It would be interesting to know how many of those ad sales or production people came from the Ann Arbor News. Please help if you can.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't answer your question, but did take a look at their launch today and all I can say is UNDERWHELMED!!! This is what they've been working on for months? Not trying to be cruel but I was expecting a little more "shock and awe!" As you say, my socks are still on, too

Anonymous said...

Here's a new Booth/Advance slogan for you:

Overpromised, underdelivered, underwhelmed.

They've got to be kidding.

Jim of L-Town said...

Again, I want to give a few days, or a week for things to shake out and see what is offered in the coming days.

Look, I've been a skeptic, mostly due to my personal knowledge of the leader of the new venture, but it is only fair to give them a little slack and see what comes in the next few days.

I'm in the process of reading some of the blogs and I'll post on those as I am inspired.

Meanwhile, I hope they appreciate all the traffic I am sending their way.

Anonymous said...

I share the underwhelmed sentiment. It's not like they didn't have time to make a splash, either.

It seems they are really careful not to offend ...

inky said...

Re: AnnArbor.com debut: Not only are my socks still on, but so are my shoes and boots.

Or in baseball parlance, it's a swing ... and a miss.

Anonymous said...

annarbor.com: we are nuts
(to think this could work)
(to believe that we couldn't find a better Web site template)
(that we would use pictures this way in a visual medium)
(that we would think such a poor design would draw an artistic community like A2)
(that we would call A2 The Duece.)
(That our staff would be so overloaded with top-heaviness)

Anonymous said...

Jim,

It's ironic that you, a writer, have a bigger picture on your blog than they (a former newspaper) have on their Web site.

Sad, really.

Anonymous said...

Pathetic, comes tome mind as an apt description. The splash page that leads me to my charter email is more exciting and newsier, and it's full of wire copy and hype.

Anonymous said...

How many chiefs does this need?

Ben Franklin said...

I've never seen anything like this before! This interweb surely is amazing! I do not understand how they will stay in business by giving their publication away, however. I would have stayed "Poor" Richard if I had done that, but perhaps I just do not understand this modern world.

Anonymous said...

When I logged on this morning, there was exactly one "hard-news" item on the front page -- the "dead body" story. Everything else was entertainment, food blogs, and the like.

Yes, those items are important in a community like Ann Arbor. And it's easier to fill a website with unpaid bloggers talking about what they're eating for dinner than the product of paid beat reporters.

But it doesn't look like a recipe for a profitable commercial website.

Anonymous said...

well, then, let's get to the real question:

what will the top-heavy leadership team there do next for a living?

:ear

Anonymous said...

I do know - one left reporter at the Bay City Times has now moved to join the Ann Arbor staff.

Anonymous said...

There's only about 1 name I don't recognize from the aan ews on aa.com staff. The reason they didn't announce them is b/c they've been working for aa.com for several weeks, if not months, using the news as aa.com's base of operations (just like circulation did for the print product) and neglecting the real newspaper.