More from Lean Dean

I was just about to post this. I'd like to say I hate it when business types try to analyze OUR business but, sigh, it IS a business, first and foremost. Forgive my ignorance but is this standard in other walks of life -- cut everything to the bone and operate with the smallest possible staff to save money?

Shit like this is enough to make a dude move to the country and grow vegetables for a living.

 

I don't think Singleton's reputation has been elevated, I just think everyone else's reputations have been lowered.

 

Not any businesses that have an actual, you know, clue.

As has been posted here before, what newspapers are doing flies in the face of every rational business model. If 'd of submitted this as a plan during my Management 340 class in college, my professor would have dropped one of his sarcastic bombs... right after he dropped a one-legged 'A' on my paper.

And if it isn't hastening their irrelevancy, it's making a bad situation worse. The problem is, the "managers" are caught in a vicious cycle of their own creation and they have no idea on how to push eject.

Of course, little of this directly applies to Singleton, because he operated a slash-and-burn philosophy from Day One. So this is S-O-P for him.

 

Seeing ESPN and Yahoo pick newsrooms clean of their talent - Newspapers need to understand they cannot continue to use the "there's the door" philosophy when too many people are actually using it. You used to see a lot more "experts" on television with newspapers attached to their names, but not so much anymore. And with mainstream news you are seeing more "I-reporters" describing scenes and fewer actual journalists.

 

Fuck BusinessWeek.
Another in a long line of source blow jobs.

 

Echo that. I liked to puke when I read that story.

 

Ditto. He quoted a bunch of ex-publishers and bottom-line guys. How about calling someone form Poynter or a professor from Columbia who could comment on how his tactics have diminished the quality of journalism at every paper he's even sniffed at and why that's important/scary to a strong democratic society.

 

Why would BusinessWeek ever do that?
It would ruin their press release.

 

Kind of interesting that the author of the Biz Week pieces on the Mercury News and Singleton used to work at the Mercury News. I believe he was an assistant business editor who lost the battle to become business editor. I will say, though, that my friends at the Mercury News said the article on their paper was pretty dead-on.

 

Yeah? What did they have to say about Dean Singleton being a "Hero" and a "crusader for efficiency and collaboration"?

 

Red Alert for those of you who work for ol' Lean:

MediaNews reported a $1 million loss last quarter.

You all probably know what that means: Beware of, yes, even MORE cuts.

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_7464696

 

Really, $1 million isn't anything for a company that size. But, I see your point.

How long before the sacred cows -- Detroit, Denver and Salt Lake City -- feel the pressure the rest of the empire does?