24 Jun 08 More Lee Abrams goodies*

Abrams interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic:

JG: Why were you surprised to find out that your company has reporters based in Iraq?
LA: I was in Los Angeles, sitting in this casual little meeting waiting for someone to show up, and there was this lady who had just got back from four years in Iraq, I forgot her name, I met 300 people in two days, and she was telling me about security problems, bullets in the background and all that, and it really struck me that there should be pictures of her with Iraqi children in the newspaper to show she was there. Whereas in the newspaper, it just says, “Times Staff Reporter.” I really never thought about it, that there was really a person over there going through hell to get this.

Er, no actually. Because then you get the Geraldo Rivera’s and those like him who decide that they themselves want to be the focus of the story. The story is what we should focus on, not the hardships of the reporter who is there. After all, the reporter needs to save something for the tell-all book later. Unless you are doing some sort of Gonzo project, the trials and tribulations of the reporter should be invisible compared to the actual story, especially with Iraq War coverage.

Going to dangerous places to get a story, to inform the people and get the truth; that’s the reporter’s job. When we watch a movie, we don’t expect the actor to stop, turn to the camera and tell us how hard it was to shoot this shot or get this scene. They save that for ‘behind-the-scenes’ specials and E! News pieces, but doing so in the middle of the film would distract from…say it together kids…THE STORY.

Continuing…

JG: It didn’t strike you that there were employees of the newspaper over there doing this work?
LA: It was just ink to me, just reading. Oh yeah, here’s what’s happening in Iraq, but then I didn’t feel the human side.
JG: So more first-person in the papers, then?
LA: I would have loved to see diaries, because what she was telling me was fascinating, living in these special secured floors of the Baghdad Hotel. It was like theater of the mind.

The human side? The Iraqis dying, the American soldiers in Iraq and the numerous other American contractors in the Middle East and you can’t see the human side? Yeah, the harrowing tale of the reporter having to take THE STAIRS to the roof of the hotel to get a signal on their satellite modem in order to file their story ON DEADLINE, that’s the real human side. The horror…the horror.

I will say this about Mr. Abrams, he is incredibly ENTHUSIASTIC!

*Note: I wouldn’t normally say critical stuff of my employer but seeing that I am leaving soon, what’s the harm (knock on wood).

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14 Feb 08 That was fast, part II

Orlando Sentinel publisher resigns

Orlando Sentinel Publisher Kathleen Waltz resigned today, ending a 34-year career with the newspaper’s parent company, Chicago-based Tribune Co.

Howard Greenberg, publisher of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, replaces Waltz, becoming interim publisher and chief executive officer of the Sentinel until a permanent Sentinel publisher is named.

Waltz said that she left after discussing ways to manage Tribune’s T-6 newspapers, the name the company uses to denote its six smaller market papers, which include the two Florida publications and four others in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

Previously, half those papers reported to the Tribune Co.’s corporate structure through Bob Gremillion, the executive vice president of Tribune Publishing, and half, including the Sentinel, through Waltz first, and then through Gremillion. Under the new structure all will report directly through Gremillion.

Well, this just gets more and more interesting every day.

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13 Feb 08 Chicago, Baltimore, and Hartford Papers Detail Tribune Cuts to Local Staffers

Gulp.

From Editor & Publisher:

Soon after Tribune Company’s announcement today that it would slash up to 500 jobs companywide, employees at several of the chain’s newspapers received details of job-cutting plans through a series of memos detailing the bad news.

The memos were first posted on the Poynter.org Romenesko Web site.

At the Hartford Courant, workers were told that “advertising revenue is currently down 14% from last year, losses are across the board with the greatest declines in our national and classified businesses. Our Advertising department is doing everything they can to turn this situation around.”

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Hmm, this may throw a wrench in my plans. But then again, probably not, us online people have an advantage. We’re the wave of the future!

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26 Jan 08 A message from Sam…

As I mentioned before, billionaire Sam Zell recently bought Tribune. Since then, he has been doing a whirlwind tour of all of his new media properties. After visiting a few, he realized something and sent out the following message:

“Everyone: I learned on the first leg of our tour of Tribune’s business units that some of them were filtering Internet content. I do not see how a member of the Fourth Estate, dedicated to protecting the First Amendment, can censor what its own employees and partners can see. I have instructed that all content filters be removed. You are now exposed to the dangers of YouTube and Facebook. Please use your best judgment. Let’s focus on what is important, and go for greatness.”

– Sam

From a journalism standpoint, I think this is a great idea. From a tech-support standpoint, however, this is going to be a disaster. Bring on the vi4gra ads and spam wars. Hey, at least the Tribune tech support staff will have job security.

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