More from Lean Dean

I hope you're right.

And your last statement is mind-spinning, though not the first time I've read such. A cheapskate, bottom-line maniac like Dean is KEEPING the execs who drain the payroll, yet cuts the little guys who pour sweat equity into the products making pennies to the execs' dollars?

 

Yeah, welcome to the world of newspapers ; and singleton needs to rot in hell when its time for him to go.

 

Yes, I was surprised to hear, when I checked with some friends in San Jose, that executive pay is still holding up. For example, a DME probably makes about $165,000 under the old Knight Ridder pay structure. One or two might make $180,000. Even if it hasn't gone up since then, that ain't bad. Of course, no more KR stock options. (Come to think of it, Riggs probably made far more than $200,000.)

 

Chemotherapy can be a blast. When you've spent most of your adult life dishing out misery and suffering, you kinda pick up a taste for it.

 

If the moderator is going to shut down anything, I'd suggest he/she consider messages rooting for anyone to have a "slow, painful death." I mean, talk about bad karma.

 

Bad Karma . . . thy name is . . . Dean Singleton.

James Taylor, the voice of the '60's, my ass.

 

I really wonder what kind of psychological profile it takes to say "sure I'll take the job for $200k" when you realize it requires doing the things Singleton execs have to to. I really wonder where Singleton finds these people who seem to have none of the virtues that journalism is supposed to represent.

 

Simple, my friend: A mortgage payment.

 

As someone working in Dean's Dark Empire, I have just as much vitriol for him as anyone. But, I've come to think the only way to continue working and stay sane is to realize that none of the decisions these corporate folks make is personal. No one's sitting in a room going, ``Let's see how many people's spirits we can squash today!''

Granted, I don't think ``it's just business'' is an excuse for their behavior. But in their minds, that's all it is, or that's the only way they rationalize it.

The problem this business faces is that for a long time, newspapers were family owned, and more often than not, that family believed in the civic importance of a free press. So, when it came to decisions like, `Should we cut three of our city hall reporters this quarter so we can post a 6 percent profit this year? Or keep them and post only a 4 percent profit?'' the family owned shop chose the latter because it recognized that the extra reporters at city hall were necessary if the paper was going to be a viable civic watchdog and uphold its fiduciary responsibility. And, quite frankly, because 4 percent aint that bad either.

Last year, I got really excited when David Geffen and his gang got into the bidding for the LA Times, because I felt like his group was interested in keeping the Times as a great investigative, cultural, and civic-minded paper. But alas, Trib went for the guy in the suit, who's really good at tearing companies apart and putting them back together ``leaner and meaner''

It's just where things are today. If Ford is losing money, 20,000 folks in Detroit are going to get laid off, no matter how compelling of a documentary Michael Moore can make.

It becomes easier to make such gutless, heartless decisions when you can hide behind your ``responsibility to the shareholders.'' It diffuses the guilt out over some amorphous group and absolves the execs from it.

The one thing it's not, is personal. It took me a long time to get to this conclusion. And I'll admit, it's not exactly satisfying. Especially considering how badly my career has suffered at times, because of it. But the sooner we all stop thinking ethics or heart or compassion play any part in the corporate mentality that has come to rule this industry, the better off we'll all be.

Now, as to next steps? career goals? paths? I haven't gotten that far yet.

 

I think that's a pretty romanticized view of what the industry used to be like.

Plenty of "family"-owned papers were forced to make a choice, and some did choose resources over profit, when things were going well and they thought it was worth the investment. You don't see too many corporate owners investing in their products these days, but I think it's a mistake to idealize the past as a time when civic-minded owners "more often than not" turned down profits over resources.

That said, I agree with your conclusion. Little of this is personal -- it's just 'bidness. And that's a sad enough statement in itself on where we're at in journalism.

 

I always wondered wher he found these people who had none of the virtues humanity is supposed to represent.

"Hello! I'm your new publisher! Basically, my role here will be to cut people's jobs! When that is finished, I'll move on to ownership's next paper, where I will cut more jobs! Then I'll go home to my family, and my kids will love me because I buy them trinkets with my high salary! So yes, I CAN look myself in the mirror every night! As 2007 dawns, Singleton thinks the Internet is the future! YAAAYYY!"

 

Of course it's not personal. For it to be personal, they'd have to view their employees as people.