RIP East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Ariz.)

OK, so bonuses for execs while everyone else is forced to give up a week's pay....Hmmm. Let me get this straight. All those furloughs weren't required to benefit the company's financial state but to pay out bonuses to executives? Interesting. Sounds familiar. I guess business school would've been the way to go.

 

Couldn't agree more on Bob. Not to mention Slim and the laundry list of really excellent writers and columnists who worked at the Trib. I don't want to say any names because I'm afraid I'd leave some out, but safe to say, a lot of people there were very good, very helpful to me when I was a young turd from a little rag in the mountains. I hate to see this happen to them.

 

To be fair, it is my understanding that everyone lost a weeks pay with furloughs, including executives.

But yes, I wish I could pocket that kind of cash while running a business into the ground.

J-School Blue: What the business has become? Hasn't it really always been that way for the publishers and executives? I'm seriously asking. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I'm sure it has to a point. But I do think, as with anything else, hard times turn otherwise decent people into mercenaries. I worked for Freedom a few years prior to the utter, complete collapse of the industry and they weren't terrible. There were even modest bonuses every now and again for company profits. Maybe I shouldn't find the rats fleeing the ship and grabbing any crumbs they can mentality surprising, but part of me does.

 

Paper may have a buyer. Details are sketchy.

http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2009/11/20/20091120biz-Tribune1121brief.html

 

I feel the pain of those affected. But this did make me LOL.

 

Committing a bit of thread necromancy but search revealed no updates to this situation. It appears the sale might actually go through successfully.

http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2010/03/09/20100309east-valley-tribune-sale.html

I guess it could be taken as good news that it's staying open at all, though this makes me dread.

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2010/03/11/new-owner-of-pulitzer-winning-east-valley-tribune-chops-newroom-in-half

 

http://www.heatcity.org/2010/03/layoffs-hit-hard-at-east-valley-tribune-newsroom-cut-by-more-than-half.html

Here is the list.... MANY good ones, specifically from sports: Les Willsey (a prep sports institution in Arizona) and Steve Burks (one of most versatile people in that building...), also a host of sports copy deskers and photogs

 

I seem to remember this paper doing well covering the Cardinals when they first moved to Tempe. Scott Bordow? And Darren Urban maybe? Good people. I think Darren went to the Cardinals as their dotcom guy.

 

And Scott just moved to the Republic.