Herald to cut about 175 positions

Dumbfounded about Dan C. His wife Doreen works at the Sentinel and is a sweetheart. Dan is a pro. A winner. A great guy.

 

I would work for the money.

Might not give them my best effort. Might even work as much overtime as possible. What are they going to do, fire me?

 

To: Mizzougrad
From: Michelle Kaufman, Miami Herald
I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find a cheap shot that low on this board, where most people aren't even bold enough to use their own names. But at the very least, you ought to do your homework before you rip my entire family. For your information, and everyone else's who uses this board, Dave Barry has NOT BEEN AN EMPLOYEE of the Miami Herald for more than two years now. He retired from the Herald. In fact, he is on my insurance plan. He maintains a blog for FREE, and the blog gets millions of hits for the Herald. Most of the writing he has done over the past year, at the political conventions and Olympics, etc...have been either for free or for a minimal fee. As for his son, he just won a national investigative reporting award and will likely be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his work on a series about dirty mortgage brokers who ripped of tens of thousands of people. Heads rolled as a result of that series. His assistant works for Leonard Pitts as well as Dave, and has other duties, such as helping run the Herald Hunt, and she is a part-timer. Not a fulltime position. As for me, I have been in this business for 22 years, have covered many beats from college hoops to NFL, 10 Olympics and everything else in between. I have worked my ass off just like others on this board, and just won a couple of APSE Top 10s to boot. I don't understand why you would rip me and my family.
It's really low. Wonder how you'd feel if someone did that to you.

 

Woo woo. You go girl!!
Hell, I thought everyone knew that Dave was no longer a Herald employee.... and anyone involved with the Herald Hunt is well paid.
Hopefully, you'll get an apology, but if you don't... he's not worth the energy.

 

I believe Mizzou posted a comment someone else made from another blog, Michelle. That shot was still way out of bounds, though. There's no place for it, but I don't think those were Mizzou's words.

 

That quote was not from me. It was posted under the story that SF linked.

It is not my opinion on any level. I just posted it because it was among the comments. That's why I put it in quotes.

I apologize for the confusion.

 

Thank you... On no level were they my words. I own more Dave Barry books than I can count and I've sat next to Michelle at events and have always found her to be delightful. It was merely among the comments on the media watch page.

 

Here's the link... It's a few down...

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/03/miami_herald_cuts_175_jobs_abo.php#comments

 

You still shouldn't have posted it and given it a wider audience, unless you were correcting the errors.

 

I posted comments from a story, nothing more nothing less...

 

The loss of experience and institutional knowledge is one of the most troublesome things to me at any publication.

In Miami, readers are losing a guy who knows where the bodies are buried or is told where they're buried. The Herald is losing a valued journalist who gets tips, has trusted sources, and knows the myriad twists and turns of the city. Truth be told, he probably sends a chill up a politician's spine when he's checking on information.

He isn't the only one. There are many like him in other newspapers throughout the country who, on their respective beats, may take years of experience and knowledge with them. People who could pick up the phone and in one or two calls have a line on a big story, or get the inside dope to help another reporter pursue a specific path.


Now, he's gone. The Herald, and journalism in general with all the other losses, is worse for it.

 

You posted angry ignorance. Is that what journalists and ex-journalists do? Take whatever information comes to us and trhow it out there?

Or do we at least consider checking and verifying?