Comment Rescue – Let’s Buy The News Journal
It is not as crazy as it sounds.
Ron Williams and the rest have run the paper into the ground. Gannett has been talking about selling off some regionals – why not the NJ?
Until that great day,
speculation has turned to what once would have been unthinkable: closing Monday editions, which have become tissue-thin in some markets. “Our Monday edition could easily be mistaken for a Pizza Hut flyer,” one reader wrote, without specifying their worksite. “It’s that thin. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was canned.”
There is a big investors conference call on October 24th – so stay tuned.
We may be able to get it VERY cheaply:
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=131756
Not likely, LG. Wilmington has long been one of the most profitable Gannett properties. Nevertheless, the word from Creekwood is that TNJ might be one of the papers that drops a Monday edition.
LG – that link has gone bad. What was the article about?
From a friend who works there, the NJ has already been cutting left and right. It’s dropped it’s Spanish-language publication and merged 55Hours with the feature section on Fridays into one big mess. It went through buyouts earlier in the year and followed with a round of layoffs. People who retire or leave now aren’t being replaced – the features department is decimated with one writer leaving for a new job and another having been laid off.
Meanwhile, the opinion department has so much experience that some of the writers can take almost two months off each year – undoutedly leading to the snafu where they re-ran a guy’s letter from the 2004 congressional campaign praising Spivack, and had some letters blown up in Large Print book-style.
And yet some reporters go months without a byline. Go figure…
TWFC: The link was to the Gannett blog run by an ex-Gannetteer. Cut and paste this:
http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/tip-in-new-deeper-cuts-big-things-now.html?showComment=1224027720000#c9147862579542177376
for the original posting.
Your tipster is a little off; five weeks is the maximum vacation time, earned after 25 years, for which I believe only Williams and John Sweeney qualify. I can verify most of what your source said, but that’s a clear exaggeration, unless you’re reporting it wrong. Doesn’t reflect well on your source.
Neither does the last cheap-shot comment, who would be hard-pressed to name “reporters” (plural) who fit this description. And s/he won’t name the one s/he means because, no doubt, s/he’s afraid of him and couldn’t carry his notebook.
Al,
Actually, I was talking about LG’s adage link, which works for me now.
As for the points you raise, yes, both were exaggerations, but not by too much. I realize bloggers and radio hosts don’t ever engage in that type of rhetoric, and apologize for introducing cheap shots to this forum. (That’s s a rhetorical technique known as sarcasm! 🙂 )
Aren’t Williams and Sweeney the top two people there? Meaning one or the other of them is gone for a fifth of the year? That’s a long time to be down one person on a small staff, let alone the people in charge.
I know it’s heresy here, but I like Ron Williams’ stuff. His sources may occasionally be full of crap, but he has stuff sometimes weeks ahead of the news pages. Ralph Moyed was the best, though.
As for the names, how about Lee Williams, Maureen Milford, Cris Barrish and Mike Chalmers? Cmopare their ouptut to, say, Terri Sanginiti, Robin Brown, Esteban Parra, Sean O’Sullivan, Beth Miller or Jeff Montgomery (who’s got to work something like 60 hours a week to do what he does). There’s just no comparison.
**** Disclosure: That observation was my own, and not my friend’s, based upon a regular reading of the NJ for many years. I have only ever met one of those individuals; I’m not even sure whether Cris Barrish is male or female. I’m certain they’re fine people and do good work overall – I’ve never seen anything hugely wrong with the quality of their reporting. And I don’t know what other duties they have at the paper – are they also editors? – but it seems that the system is set up to reward one or two Big Investigative Blockbuster Mega-Hyper-Colossal Projects a year that can perhaps be milked for awards and glory. I don’t see hwo that allocation of scarce resources is good for the paper or for Delaware.
If my impressions are wrong, I’m happy to be corrected.
Back to jason’s original point – reading the gloom and doom on the Gannett Blog, it sounds like someone might be able to pick up a few good journalists for cut-rate prices by January or even earlier. How about “Delaware Talk Radio: The Newspaper”? 😉
Wow, I got smilies to work!
I was thinking DelawareLiberal: The Print Edition. Except that would be like Henry Ford going into the horse and carriage business.
Still, it would be great to have the reach and readership of even a dying newspaper.
I get to manage the personal ads!!!
Who wouldn’t love to see a DV column?
“I was thinking DelawareLiberal: The Print Edition.”
Why not drop all pretense and call it the Wilmington Workers Daily?
I think Liz Allen owns the rights to that name.