Up to no good at Union-Trib?

You still in the business, Tim?

None of us have heard a thing about you since you last Cincy. It's like you fell out of the sky like a meteor.

 

Chuck Scott has been well-liked and well-respected at many stops along the way: L.A., Orange County, San Diego, Dallas .........

 

In reply to Gutenberg's question, I continue to joust with the mother tongue (Red Smith), albeit feebly, and am now closing press boxes in the Pacific time zone. If my profile is lower here in paradise, perhaps it is because I don't have Pete Rose to kick around any more. I'm nine days away from the 20-year anniversary of my lone appearance on Nightline. (The eve of Rose's banishment.)

 

Sounds like he was asked to take futuristic new role, so he embraced it and then was rewarded for his professionalism, loyalty and innovation with a layoff.

 

Hmmmm....sounds like that to me, too..

 

Like the beat writers who move up to national beats and then their papers knock the legs out from under those national beats. Or they willingly drive a ton and set up shop covering a team/school in a satellite market, then are the ones whacked when the paper decides to go "hyperlocal."

Shouldn't good employees who volunteer or earn such promotions get to un-do those types of moves? Wouldn't they be allowed to more frequently, if only they hadn't earned higher salaries via good work through the years?

Lot of dishonesty and unscrupulousness in newsrooms allegedly dedicated to ferreting out such elsewhere.

 

In a word, yes. I think that part of the past few years has disturbed me as much as anything. I know they're dumping salary, so to speak, but it seems like the people who do the good work and go the extra mile should be able to return to where they were -- and yes, unfortunately dumping somebody else out of a job -- when things get cut back.

Honestly -- and certainly not applying to everybody remaining in this business, don't get me wrong -- but it seems if you were able to look into the future five or six years ago, the best thing to do was to stay as close to home and do the most local things possible, no matter how good the "promotion" looked at the time.

 

As one of a handful of folks at the paper who had been pushing for the newsroom to integrate with the company's independent, isolated and undermanned Web operation, I was happy to take on the role.

New owners have new directions, though I have to wonder about the wisdom of dismantling the newsroom's Web team in an era when the audience -- and the advertisers -- are inexorably abandoning print.

And you're right, SF, the message is stick close to the tried and true, yet another reason for the infamously change-resistant culture at the average newspaper, reality be damned.

 

I'm not sure this culture in newsrooms is so much an attitude of obstinacy or resistance to change as it is a realization that there is no real job-sustaining ad model in place yet.

People may not be against change/technology -- just the idea that many, many more jobs and livelihoods will be lost and rendered unnecessary by that change/technology.

That appears to be a harsh, almost unsurvivable reality of Web-based operations that we can already see now for almost anybody over the age of 25.

In that case, a certain amount of reluctance to invite and embrace more such changes is probably to be expected...not necessarily right, or the best way to be in the long run, but, still, it probably shouldn't be any surprise.

 

Two more names. SDSU beat writer Mick McGrane and copy editor Larry Brillhart. (according to VOSD)

 

Only two weeks before the season starts, too.

SDSU was probably the No. 3 beat at the paper, no?

 

I echo the good thoughts about Chuck (I've been gone for a few days and, alas, didn't check SportsJournalists.com when I was away). I know him as a good worker and good person, and a peer of mine who worked with him can't say enough good things about him. As to the future of the U-T, hold on ...