Running Lee Enterprises thread

Do we need one? Well, we talk about this traveshamockery of a news corporation all the time and they do all sorts of shitty things, like this one …



(stolen from a former Missoulian staffer on Facebook, and apparently neither the Missoulian nor Lee has admitted this publicly … yet there was a story but they didn’t do much with it on social: Missoulian building to be listed at $8.58M)

 

Traditional and obligatory "What's Mary's cut?" post. Carry on.

 

I heard of a Gannett site that recently put its building up for sale, and the corporate suits never mentioned it to anyone at that site.

They found out when a TV reporter in the market saw the building for sale on the Facebook site of the real estate broker and called the newsroom to ask about it, and questioned whether they were closing up shop for good.

 

Our old building was abandoned when they moved almost everyone across the river to our sister daily, and then torn down several years ago and replaced by an apartment complex for Microville Tech students (it was four blocks from campus). My old shop had a branch office in a strip mall for about four years before abandoning Microville completely last year. It's sad.

 

The hedge fund takeover and sale of these buildings is the last despicable straw regarding the business. It'd be a great news story/photo spread to see the before and after buildings and locations of "newspaper" buildings after the hedge fund takeovers. It guarantees a huge payday for the hedge funders as they laugh all the way to the bank while decimating an industry. At least newspaper reporters are smart and know what's going on and has been going on. Only reason they take it is Journalism is in their blood and they are proving they'll work for pennies and medical benefits. Surprised the hedge funds have not yet stripped employees of benefits if that is legal.

 

If we weren't in the middle of this damned pandemic — and the building didn't look so much like a middle school — I'd say that site would be a good spot for Missoula's latest brew pub/restaurant.

I'm guessing they no longer print the paper at that site, but I could be wrong.

 

It’s ironic this Lee Enterprises thread has appeared. There’s some *stuff* going on. For starters, Omaha World-Herald has seen a couple of cuts this week. Then, Rachel Crader, Lee’s national sports editor, tweets that she’s now the sports editor of all Lee papers in Wisconsin, too. What does that MEAN? Last I knew, Greg Sprout was the sports man in charge at the WSJ. Now he’s not on the website’s staff directory. Could all be coincidence, or a less sinister reason, but I’m just throwing it out there.

 

Is Lee going to consolidate the Omaha and Lincoln papers? Print out of the same building and basically combine staffs?

 

Do you have information on a potential consolidation, Lancey?

 

None.

But according to my Google maps the Star-Journal building is 59 miles from the World Herald building. Companies have been consolidating printing of newspapers when they are within 200 miles of each other. And upthread Lee is selling the Missoula building which means they have pushed printing the Missoulan somewhere else.

 

Lee is basically consolidating all their papers into regional entities.

 

Agreed. In fact, I assume these two papers already print together in Omaha. I have seen news stories in the past 6-8 months about Lincoln selling its printing facility. Will be interesting to see how Lee treats these papers moving forward, given the narrow proximity.