More CNHI

Well, why would anyone ever want to buy anything? If they see a way to make a profit, sometimes they bite.

I didn't say Buffet would want to buy. I was simply answering someone else's question about owners who might be good. It's all hypothetical.

God, I am sooooooo glad I don't have to work in that cesspool anymore.

 

Ottumwa Courier is dropping Monday, (They will now be Tuesday-Saturday).

Oskaloosa Herald is going to a shopper-only Wednesday. They will have some editorial in the shopper instead of having two publications, a subscriber-only daily and shopper, on Wednesday.

 

Yeah, at one CNHI paper I worked at, we did pretty much the same front page layout every day. Borrrrrrrrr-ing!!! It was sort of like paint by numbers.

I wonder if that is going to become standard with all these pagination hubs. You get a template and just plug in the copy and write the headline. But zero creativity. That saddens me. One of the things I enjoyed about the desk work was the chance to be creative with photos, graphics, infoboxes, etc. I would try to never do the same layout more than two days in a row.

 

That's dead on.

 

We've been told there are going to be three or four basic templates for the front page. Inside pages will just be puzzled in however they fit.

But the fancy stuff probably isn't going to happen anymore unless we somewhat secretly pull the page back in and do it in-house instead of using the hub. The dipshits at CNHI corporate office would probably not be happy...they haven't figured out they are absolute morons yet and are completely running the papers into the ground.

 

CNHI is a joke. Orange Texas paper is down to two days a week. Publisher let go. Circulation ran out of Port Arthur and so us advertising and the publisher there is over both papers. Ad rep quit. Editor has been there a decade and its easy to see he is next. What's sad is Port Arthur news team had nerve to tell Oranges editor what was important to his readers. Orange leader is a sinking ship yet out performs PA daily. Few OL workers waiting to be fired each day and actually want it to happen.

 

Worked in PA more than 20 years ago. I predicted way back then that Orange and PA would merge, possibly to fend off a takeover (or at least being run into oblivion) by the Beaumont Enterprise.

Last fall I drove through PA for the first time in 20 years; was nice to see they have abandoned the old building downtown --- downtown is like a ghost town now --- and moved further north. Two guys I worked with back in the day are still there, but the decline in the paper is real sad and sort of mirrors the rest of the town.

 

Sad part is The Leader seems to produce more local stories than The News. The day CNHI let go the leader publisher and put PA's over both is the day the winf got sucked out of orange. A merger doesn't even seem on the horizon. The new slogan will be "the port arthur news proudly presents the orange leader"

 

That seems to be in line with a trend happening a lot of places. Are the ad sales staffs combined?

 

I like the show "Undercover Boss" because it sheds some hope on corporate humanity. I've wondered if they'd ever get around to a newspaper company, which not surprisingly hasn't happened. Can anyone imagine this company as part of that series? I'd like to see any newspaper as part of it, but this one would take the cheese - and curdle it.

 

This! I've had the exact same thought.