Comments on: Time for the boss to fall on his sword

by: The Mule

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:35:27 +0000

Dang, ITA — knew I was old, but didn’t know I made you cower behind a desk out of fear. As for honest dialogue, you continually project your own shortcomings on me. Never have set foot in an ivory tower — or the electronic bubble your notions seem to spring from.

by: InTheArena

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:45:32 +0000

Locomotive Breath, keep up the good work. Don’t let the sad insults of an old man (who professionally considers causing others to cower behind their desks for fear of honest dialogue to be a badge of honor) to have any other opinion that to simply threaten you to “not trot out this line of talk.” Easy to bully from the ivory tower. Implied threats of violence to streetwalkers aside, the facts on the ground prove who’s correct LB. Again, well said.

by: RaoulDuke

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:58:18 +0000

One can only hope to be still standing when the impersonal axe of this Grand Recession falls on Locomotive Breath. It will be interesting to see if callous political certainty gives way to imperiled self interest. Be advised not to trot out this line of talk to any N & O employee you meet on the street.

by: Mike

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:06:59 +0000

Raleigh has not been hit hard by the recession — yet — but the N&O’s fortunes have been declining, have they not? Whether N&O is profitable is immaterial: The question is HOW profitable, and for how much longer would it have remained so?

All newspapers are doomed, in every U.S. market, unless they radically cut and restructure.

N&O may have a better chance of survival through drastic change while it’s still healthy; for many other newspapers, it’s much too late for any change to work.

Unfortunately, I still agree with what I believe to be this article’s ultimate point: Pruitt is not making the changes that will help newspapers evolve. His strategies seem to be fundamentally flawed.

To evolve, newspapers must preserve local news writing, get rid of the content that can already be found elsewhere, renew readers’ perception that local media provide unique local content.

To compete in an era of free and low-cost competition, newspapers must dismiss costly layers of editors and managers, and pay local content creators by the piece for original work that is of genuine local interest.

Because of its much higher costs, local investigative journalism may have to be handled by specialty content providers at a premium price.

Current McClatchy management does not appear to be up to the task — but to be fair, are the unions any more prepared to let go of layers of editors, salary-based compensation, and benefits?

by: Chappy

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:53:05 +0000

Ya ya, the 10Q or something, right? Totally forgot. My bad. Can you give us a link to that info? I’m up to my neck in Web server work today, no time to track it down myself. Thanky.

It’s just seems that everywhere I hear, “Our paper is profitable, the company is dragging us down.” So I want to know for certain who’s making what. although you mention it isn’t broken down paper-by-paper, which kind of takes me back to my first point.

Awesome column today, BTW. if you haven’t already heard, it’s mentioned on cancelthebee.blogspot.com, a blog by a bitter (and conservative) ex-McClatchy employee. Where ARE all these damn liberal journalists, anyway? sheesh.

by: G.D. Gearino

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:12:33 +0000

Bob: You’re right, of course. There were many more than “two dozen” people pushed out the N&O’s door this week. I only referred to the newsroom’s losses. But I was friends with many non-news employees at the paper, and it was wrong for me to treat them as afterthoughts. Thanks for the reminder. I needed it.

Chappy: McClatchy is a public company, and its profit-and-loss information is right there for everyone to see. It makes a profit on its core business of publishing newspapers. The losses have mostly come in the form of writedowns of assets that have lost value (which in finance-speak is called an “impairment”). If the company broke down its financials paper by paper (which it doesn’t), we’d probably see that some are, in fact, money losers … the Miami Herald, for instance. But the Triangle remains a strong market, and the N&O still operates in the black.

by: Bob

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:50:45 +0000

First off, come on GD, there were 78 employees informed yesterday they no longer have employment at The N&O . I hope you are not showing some “newsroom bias” by noting in your column that “more than two dozen” were no longer needed. With that said I too am a former N&O employee who has several friends who lost their job yesterday. Yes, many are people who are doing their jobs well and now due to the cold hearted people at McClatchy wonder how they will feed their families and provide household expenses. How many of those employees could be saved by Mr. Pruitt taking his pay down several million. How many could be saved if Mr. Quarles took his pay down several hundred thousand as well. Ditto that across the McClatchy chain with corporate VP’s and highly paid publishers. These are the people responsible for this mess and they are not feeling the pain of unemployment. I also wonder how Mr. Ford writes editorials with any moral standing about other companies screwing their employees, when his company is doing that and worse. What a sad state of affairs we have here. What has happened to this once great newspaper?

by: Chappy

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:17:59 +0000

“The N&O is profitable.” How do we know? The same people who are doing the layoffs are the ones who told us this… and unless they open the books, we’ll have to take them at their word.

Newspapers are dying because no one has time to read them. We get to work and read the news online. I can’t tell you the number of times I went to the home of a journalist in their 20s or 30s and found a pile of rolled-up papers by the door. If young journalists aren’t reading it….

by: Locomotive Breath

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:52:21 +0000

Actions have consequences. Misfortune created by your own bad actions is called just deserts.

“others who really do believe in what they do.”
So the world owes them a living? Maybe in their own minds.

And you lose. Godwin’s law

by: Chappy

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:48:48 +0000

Yes, Pruitt should do the right thing and step down.

Sure, newspapers liberal bias is what’s killing them. And CNN will soon go under because of its liberal bias, I’m sure. Then there will be MSNBC, Newsweek and oh! The Nation, and….