Hammer dropping as we speak at the Sun-Sentinel

Not sure. Only know of 18 or so out of the 30. I guess a few more were made at the end of shift last night, so those should trickle in today.

Christensen's departure is a kick in the gut. And McMullen's signals that the last trace of sanity has left this business.

 

I've worked with Don, I've played golf and drank with Don, and our careers -- at least long segments of them -- have followed each other around. He can have a prickly personality, but nobody I've ever worked with has cared any more about putting out a good newspaper -- and in the best tradition of this business, you could be having a heated argument with him about story play one minute and drinking a beer with him the next.

We're reaching the point where there's nothing left to say, except to repeat that this madness makes less and less sense no matter how you look at it.

I've had a good-natured debate with Simon about blogs being posted unedited and that kind of thing, and Simon keeps coming back at my defense with the argument that it's apparent they're going to try to do this with less and less editing, and that letting unedited blogs go live is another step in that direction.

I'm having a hard time countering that point anymore.

Purely because of my curiosity, I'd love to be in that building for a couple of days and watch how they're going to continue to try to put out a newspaper. But I'm sure it'd be depressing.

 

SF.... it is one of my bucket-list hopes to have a drink with you and Don when he comes out on the other side of the Shawshank-styled tube of crap he's in now.

I'm absolutely numb.

 

They'll be OK now.... during the dead days of May, June, July and early August.

Ohhh, football season through April 2010, though? Yikes.

 

the modules will continue to take over locally designed content whenever possible, and more and more editors will be layed off.

they've even changed fonts and style at localities to fit tribune shared style.

except the people designing the shared content are some of the least experienced there. sad, sad.

 

Not that I have seen....

 

As a name on this list, I can vouch for the way we all feel about TC. He also had one of the rarest of qualities in our business: He was truly kind. He deserves far better than this.
I'm unclear in reading these postings about Don Mac's fate. Could someone please clarify? I drove Mac crazy on more than one occasion--I've been known to push a deadline or two--but Mac was a true pro, and the S-S would be a lesser place without him.

 

Same blog now has these four names from sports:

-- Assistant Sports Editor Tom Christensen

-- Assistant Sports Editor Don McMullen

-- Sports writer Michael Cunningham

-- Sports agate clerk Mike Santell

 

Gordon: As far as I can tell, he's out. There's no official confirmation of any of this, but the lists on the site in question are usually accurate, or quickly corrected if there has been an error.

 

That sucks. I worked with Donnie Mac years ago and he is one of the good ones.

 

That really sucks about all of them. Cunningham is a great guy. That sucks.