Editorial arrogance, Editorial layoffs

By Lou Grant | Aug 11, 11:06 AM

The press is taking a hard look at why it allowed the John Edwards story to slip past it. The question of whether this is a news worthy story at all is obviously yes, just look at the coverage of the story now that is in the MSM. So, if the MSM knew about Edward's infidelity, why did it take it so long to finally cover the story?

An interesting answer from Paul Gillin in newspaperdeathwatch.com, "much of their indifference was apparently due to the fact that the National Enquirer broke the story. Media snootiness about the supermarket tabloids is legend, but in this case, the Enquirer's reporting was about 95% accurate. Plus they had photos, for goodness sake. This is classic media arrogance. If the story wasn't reported by a "real journalist" (there's that term again), then it isn't to be trusted. But there are fewer and fewer real journalists out there, so where are you going to get your news? Perhaps it's time to redefine your definition of credible source," Gillin writes.

Gillin, who later in his post criticizes the reluctance of journalists to work with the business side of the newspaper, particularly advertising sales, says it's time to tear down some assumptions about the business before the business disappears.

Mark Potts at recoveringjournalist.typepad.com writes "this really highlights a lot of things that are wrong with traditional journalism. One of them is a virulent "not invented here" mentality that automatically dismisses stories from other sources, particularly non-traditional sources. Yeah, the National Enquirer isn't The New York Times. But its reporting was solid and deserved more than the perfunctory followup that it seemed to get from the rest of the press. But almost nobody in the traditional media would touch the story-indeed, the Los Angeles Times even forbade its bloggers from mentioning it!"

Finally, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz weighed in observing, "those who blithely dismiss a brash supermarket tabloid -- what New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller called the "hold-your-nose quality about the Enquirer" -- had better check the record. The Enquirer's reporting of the O.J. Simpson extravaganza of the '90s was good enough to be cited by the Times itself. In 2001, the tabloid reported both that Hillary Clinton's brother had been paid $400,000 to secure a presidential pardon for a convicted businessman, and that Jesse Jackson had fathered an out-of-wedlock child. In 2003, Rush Limbaugh acknowledged an addiction to painkillers after the Enquirer reported that Florida authorities were looking into his drug use.

"The Enquirer's standards aren't my standards, and I still believe that paying sources, as it did in the Edwards case, taints a story. But the paper knows how to conduct an investigation for certain kinds of stories," according to Kurtz.

The fact is that information, the social coin that is news, is coming from many sources today, including the National Enquirer but also blogs, discussion boards and social networks. MSM needs to realize that citizen journalism, blogs and these other competitors are gaining respectability and clout by nature of their work. Is there a lot of junk out there? Yes. But there are also some sources that know more about the subject than the MSM and are willing to write about it.

Page Two, the August 8^th termination was the third mass termination at the Chicago Tribune in 14 months. The company is in shock as each round of layoffs brings another reorganization of the workforce and assaults a long held belief in "mother Tribune." Goodbye assumptions and also many people in editorial.

This blog has obtained a copy of the Older Worker Benefit Protection Act List, given to terminated employees. While editorial lamented that it was the target of earlier layoffs, let's face it, editorial only suffered what other departments also suffered. But perhaps it was easier to investigate the missing crime reporter in the next cube than the fact that advertising has undergone three new commissions' schemes this year alone.

Not so with this round. The cuts were especially deep in editorial as shown in this summary.

Advertising: 5

Circulation 4

Chicagoland Publishing 2

Finance 1

Marketing 4

Operations 7

Editorial 37

TOTAL 60

Tribune employees are expecting yet another round of layoffs before the end of the year.

Page Three. If you haven't figured it out yet, this post is all about editorial employee's elitism. Now it has hit your faithless blogger. Until last week the Chicago Tribune employees had a blog to read about the problems at the company. Similar blogs have appeared at most of the other Tribune Co. papers, with the blog TellZell.com leading the pack at the Los Angeles Times.

However, the TribuneTwoStep.blogspot.com changed to an invitation-only blog last week, leaving this writer wondering how to get invited as there isn't a way to e-mail the author.

Do you know how to contact the TribuneTwoStep? Send it to Lou by way of Geoff's e-mail.

Tagged: Tribune Company, Chicago Tribune