More DMN updates

Don't count on Cowlishaw staying. Word is he's fed up with management and will jump if he gets a reasonable offer.

 

Sounds like the DMN management if even more inept than I imagined.

 

Will someone please explain to me why Cowlishaw walks on water in the eyes of top DMN brass? He's a nice guy, likable, but they took him of the Cowboys beat about 15 years ago because he was always getting beat and even now his writing is vanilla. Not in the class of the likes of bayless or galloway. Even if that's exactly what you want in a columnist, where does it merit being afraid of losing him and doubling his salary? You can get vanilla columnists who can't report for a dime a dozen.

I don't get it.

 

It's all about branding. DMN sank a lot of capital in promoting Cowlishaw as its lead columnist. He's getting a lot of TV exposure. And it looks bad to have all your columnists jump ship. He does have a good local following, too.

 

You don't get it? Neither does Belo.

 

Lone Star Scribe, I'm sure you're right about the DMN brand and the face time on TV -- those are things those corporate types would think are important. And you might be right that Cowlishaw has a local following, but I'm skeptical. I know a few folks who live in Dallas, as well as a few with the DMN, and they all seem to have no regard for him -- not just a low regard, but no regard, as in never reading the guy. The only time I've heard his name mentioned it was the subject of a sentence that ended with either "shit" or "idiot."

 

I realize I'm probably the only one who doesn't know, but could someone please explain what exactly happened to the DMN to cause all this? I haven't really paid attention, but I see so many threads about the sinking ship. What caused the wreck?

 

Well, a lot of it is just the sinking-of-newspapers stuff, but they also had a huge circulation scandal that seriously damaged their bottom line for a while. A good search of Dallas Morning News and circulation would probably turn up much of what you're looking for.

 

Around $40 million lost on a bad technology investment in 1999-2000, another $26 million lost in 2004-05 in refunds to advertisers after the circulation scandal.

 

Add at least three other corporate boondoggles. DMN went head-to-head against the Star-Telegram in Arlington and got their heads handed to them. There was the failed TXCN cable enterprise, when they wanted to become the CNN of Texas. And their expansion into Collin County didn't raise a blip on the circulation radar. Just basically poor management decisions. Plus from what I hear their giveaway tabloid and Spanish language paper haven't gotten out of the red yet. They basically were started up to keep competition out.

Blushing, re Cowlishaw, not saying I like or don't like his columns. But it seems to me that if people are reading him and calling him "that idiot," he's fulfilling his role as a columnist: Getting people to either adamantly agree or violently disagree. You want your columnists to be lightning rods. And readership surveys -- taking them for what they are -- say people read him.

 

It's official -- Dennis Hall to Fayetteville (NC) Observer as AME for sports and online. Another DMN castaway has been rescued.

 

D Hall is a good one. Heck, just about everybody on thet buyout list I saw is a good one.