Shakeup in Fort Lauderdale

Editor-publisher Howard Saltz out as of tomorrow. No word on whether he incurred any more debts (after blowing off the $3 million one he left Denver with before he came to Florida).

Howard Saltz Out as Sun Sentinel Editor and Publisher

New general manager, editor-in-chief named to oversee Sun Sentinel

Oh, BTW, all the print copy editing and design for tronc papers is moving to Chicago. Lots of job losses coming soon. Chicago's hub already had been doing Newport News, Va. (since 2010) and Hartford (since 2011).

This was supposed to have happened in Orlando and Fort Lauderdale almost six years ago (which is one of the reasons I left in the first place). Not sure why it took so long, but glad for my former colleagues that it did.

 

Saw the two memos that accompanied these announcements.

The reorganization memo was Tronc-wide and hit the Sun Sentinel one day before the Douglas High shootings occurred about 15 minutes from the newsroom. After about two pages of buzzwords and bizspeak about Tronc's reorganized newsrooms, there was a paragraph basically stating, "Oh, by the way, the copy desks are being eliminated and the editing and design functions are moving to Chicago."

During a brief newsroom meeting following the announcement, affected employees were told to call a Tronc HR rep with questions. When they called, they found out the rep had just left on vacation.

Those being let go can apply for jobs on the central desk in Chicago, but my source says there's little enthusiasm for that at the Sun Sentinel. There's also a slim possibility a desk person or two will be kept and reassigned within the newsroom -- but again, no one's holding his or her breath.

As for the Saltz memo, it simply announced he was leaving Feb. 28 -- didn't even say he'd be "spending more time with his family" or "pursuing other opportunities." Has to be an interesting backstory there.

 

Remember when the Sun Sentinel used to be a first-rate newspaper and one of the best in the nation with such an impressive collection of talent from reporters and editors down to the copy desks and even agate clerks?

 

The best 26 years of my (working) life.

 

Thick paper at one time. GREAT sports section. Looked forward to Sundays when two sections were tucked in, Sports and College Football... or was there a separate NFL section?)

 

Regular sports section and college football section Sunday; regular section and NFL section Monday.

It was the fastest-growing paper in the country for a while in the late '80s-early '90s and also was No. 1 nationally in ad lineage during many of those years.

 

For two Sundays in October 1997:

Three sections: Regular sports, College Football and World Series. 180 columns of space (think 30 open pages).

 

The Sun-Sentinel (with a hyphen back then) was a very strong paper overall until Tribune's decline began, but making money and covering sports were what it did best. If its news coverage had matched the elite level of its sports coverage, it probably would have won a half-dozen Pulitzers, maybe more.

 

One of the worst beats I remember was some dull summer night in 2004. S-S had some centerpiece on young, rising South Florida future star athletes. Around midnight, with the section long headed off to the press, Dan Le Batard appears on SportsCenter talking about his Herald report saying Ricky Williams of the Dolphins is leaving football to travel the world.

By 2004 things were already turning sour for Tribune. Five years into the merger with Times-Mirror, and nothing was working out as expected.

 

Oh man, was I spoiled. I did a spring trip in 2003 to Florida for spring training and the Marlins opener (checking out all the parks) and the Herald, SS, and Palm Beach Post were all really strong back then. We also had a bookstore that got out of state papers delivered, and the SS was one of them. I knew the info was a few days old, but man was it worth reading.