CJR: A report on the Ann Arbor News changes

Not surprisingly the company itself refused to comment to the Columbia Journalism Review, but the take on the whole enterprise is not too positive.

Make sure you follow this link as well for more coverage.

Well that AnnArbor.com experiment didn't last long

MLive.com announced some major changes to the AnnArbor.com experiment that began with such promise just four years ago. The major changes is that after Sept. 11 it will no longer exist. It is being folded into the MLive.com group of companies and that the former news print version is reverting to the former Ann Arbor News masthead.

Good luck with that.

And don't miss the growing list of comments under the story, at least the ones that haven't been deleted because of how negative they are. Here's just one sample of the 91 posted so far:

"Next to AnnArbor.com, the software that drives MLive and the presentation is the worst. Also, using the name "Ann Arbor News" is a giveaway that you think WAY too much of yourselves.You don't deserve to use that moniker, especially since you killed it in the first place."

A blogger chimes in about the "new" Cleveland.com

An interesting read on the effects of layoffs at the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Reminder about posts and comments

It's been awhile since I've had to delete a comment, but as a reminder I try not to allow personal attacks on people by name. Part of that has to do with the anonymous nature of most of the comments.

It is fair game to comment on specific things people have done  and perhaps using a title. But again when I deem (it is my blog after all) an anonymous comment is simply a personal attack on an individual without any facts or support behind it I will not post it.

From time to time I get e-mail from folks who give me information to check out and I will try and do that and will protect your anonymity.

In the more than five years of Free From Editors I have deleted less than 10 comments, but today I had to again. That does not count the posts I delete because they are computer generated spam.

Thanks for playing nice.

A little late, but a CJR post worth reading

Not sure how I missed this excellent piece by the Columbia Journalism Review on the history of the "job pledge" at Advance, but worth a read for former employees. I must say that most of us knew the pledge wasn't really a "lifetime" guarantee, more of a union busting clause.

Well, here's a new way to make money if you are in newspapers

As the person who sent this to me said "A true 'man bites dog' story.

We've come a long way baby (in newspapers)

Well, at least this proves that some newspapers were thinking about the impacts of the computer and Internet about the time Al Gore invented it. This 1981 news report about the Internet and newspapers is a fun listen.

It shows that some newspaper execs could see there would be an impact, but even in these early days they discounted what it might mean.

Oregonian employees join the march to the door

The Advance newsroom strategy has moved to Portland. Welcome to the brave new world. It's a long, but familiar read. Some of the links are worth following as well.

MLive.com on MLive.com: "We're doing great"

A self-serving, self assessment was posted by MLive.com. While I wish them well, if the comments are any indication they may want to do a story on what the readers think.

Hopefully when the boss visited the various MLive offices he brought with him a living wage and bonuses for those "professionals" who are toiling in the vineyard.

As the comments have mounted as the day goes on I'm struck that sometime since I posted this today and now a pretty significant statement has been edited out of the article. A commenter pointed out:


"below about 30 comments there is a statement that mlive has more "aggregate" journalists than were employed by the 8 papers 16 months ago. this is highly misleading in that most of the local cutbacks occurred more than 60 months ago.
that being said, as one of the former employees, i have no grievance with mlive. it just seems that the current execs maybe could just own up and say, "the economy and changing market conditions forced us to cut back," rather than trying to assert that today's product is superior. most remaining readers would appreciate the frankness and the reasons.
p.s.: when i make nostalgic visits to my old reporting clippings, which were compiled monthly in the newspaper library, i admit a number of them are too long and wordy, instead of criticizing today's citizens for having short attention spans. lol on that. !!! "

(Note from me: I thought that statement seemed suspicious when I read it, but I took it at face value, but the above commenter pointed out the obvious and now that statement seems to be missing from the article).

The comments have continued through the day and are 99 percent negative.

New book by a former FJ staffer

Jerry Wright has written a book about his wife's valiant struggle. Those of us who worked with Jerry know what a faithful husband he was. I haven't read the book - yet - but wanted folks to know it is available.

Kim Crawford: Star of stage, screen and radar

For all you old Flint Journal folks, former reporter Kim Crawford will be featured tonight as an "expert" on the Travel Channel's production "Dead Files."  As they say, 10 p.m. Eastern and 9 Central time.

Just a heads up.

Here's a link to the trailer for the show:

http://www.travelchannel.com/video/filled-with-tragedy

Someone is trying to look out for unpaid/low paid interns

Hopefully, these interns will win this suit and prevent newspapers from basically using them as unpaid news servants.

The anatomy of a story and how it went wrong under the "new" journalism

This is an interesting story on how the Washington Post quietly edited and corrected a major story without any correction.

Back to the future: A daily newspaper returns to New Orleans

I thought this might have been an April Fool's joke, but then I checked the date and source and it appears that Advance has decided being a daily newspaper company in New Orleans is not such a bad idea after all.

Here's the Poynter take on the AP phone records seizure

The news that the Department of Justice seized phone records from the Associated Press is disturbing to the extreme. Here is what Poynter says about it today.

Scott Pelley on today's Journalism

This link will take you to a series of recent quotes about the state of journalism by CBS anchorman Scott Pelley. (I think the obvious spelling mistakes may be the fault of the website and not Pelley, but who knows?

Sloppy journalism at the Miami Herald

What I enjoyed about this article was the Miami Herald editor's excuse for why the mistake happened. Now the "new" journalism is blaming its mistakes on the realities of the  "new" journalism.

When something is as easily checked as a person's criminal record simply by going online, is there really any excuse?

And then there is this from Poynter on the Internet sensation of Cleveland hero/woman rescuer Charles Ramsey.

The newspaper bleeding continues

I know a former book page editor who won't be surprised at this news.

More newspaper circulation gobbly dee gook

Not sure what this article is even saying, but I put it up here in case you can interpret it.

A couple items for your breakfast reading

An interesting Pew Research study on the current state of the news media is pretty good reading.

And a few pictures to drive the sadness home.