It's official (now): Whitlock leaving the KC Star

I would do everything I could to keep a mugshot of me wearing a Snuggie out of the paper, too.

 

Yes, you can. Why would you acknowledge it with a response? The two lines that come to mind are Mark Twain's about people thinking you're an idiot and something about a pissing contest with a skunk.

 

KC Star has no duty to wallow in the garbage.

 

I'm all for promoting writers and making them stars if their talents merit it.
At the end of the day, though, nobody is bigger than the paper. Just as no star athlete is bigger than the team. If you let your writer get away with that crap, it's on you. Guy's making $350K or whatever it was, he writes when you say he writes, within reason. If he doesn't want to do that, let him get that kind of bread somewhere else. It's not like the paper isn't coming out tomorrow.

 

Same thing goes for papers that promote people, then take a back seat when the person goes off to do outside TV/radio work. Can't stand how some of these newspapers let themselves be treated like the frumpy housewife back home, while hubby runs off to bright lights and big cities with the mistress. (Doesn't even matter that the housewife IS frumpy. Treatment is wrong.)

Not only do the papers look silly and settle for an inferior product (way too many columnists find ways to squeeze their print work into what time is left) but it kills morale when the staffers with the top roles take shortcuts in work priorities. Preps writer is supposed to bust his butt for 60 hours when the lead columnist is whipping out his columns in two or three hours, maybe between commercial breaks? Very, very few are able to serve two or more masters well -- Wilbon seems to, Canzano by most reports -- and too many stick the day job (which got them their other opportunities) in the back seat.

Yet another place where SEs often do not show spine.

 

What a shock -- Whitlock does some actual reporting.

 

Trust me. You can serve two masters. If you give a damn.

 

wilbon very much gives a damn, but his column has clearly suffered since he went to tv. this, coming from someone who once felt he was the best columnist in the country.

 

His column might not be as brilliantly written, but is it as effective? Does it draw more readers to the Post that he's on TV? I'd argue that it does. I'd also argue that he makes so much money on TV that his real master is there. It changed once PTI hit.

 

This is how the higher-ups justify it, almost as a free national ad. They don't care that they get the short end of the stick, they just care that the stick is getting free promotion.

 

I'm not sure the word "justify" is justified.
It's like a film studio. Brad Pitt is a capable actor but might not be the actor that, say, Jeff Bridges is. But who'll sell more tickets?
It's a business. Now more than ever, don't we realize that?