More from Lean Dean

Ron has never been someone to mince words. He will choose them carefully, but he will not utter or write anything that even remotely resembles "mutual separation." He will keep working and probably tell Singleton to stick his pension up his MS ass. Not that Singleton has the money to be promising anyone pensions. I heard a rumor that he may lose his papers to Hearst just to keep up with his loan payments. Not a good idea to count on a man in debt to provide your retirement. Then again, not a good idea to expect a man in debt to be able to pay his employees.

 

it's probably not a pension, because that would be protected except in the event of a bankruptcy. The question about diplomatic talk would involve a severance agreement.

 

Pete's a good guy. He brought me in for an interview in Tacoma and his people loved him. I've never heard that kind of stuff from someone's staff. They nicknamed him "The King." I did my due diligence and heard the same things from people in L.A., Pittsburgh and Jersey. So if he's the next editor, the LADN people ought to give him a chance.

 

Ron has one of the good pensions, pre-Cooke.
An old, bought-out Tribune pension that's been sitting in escrow. Same with Duffy and Quist.
(I have a little experience on the dealings.)
And, of course, Gold is right about the terms of severance.

 

He's not going to get a chance. Whoever replaces Ron is already being labeled as Butler's boy. The next editor might be the second coming, and he will be entering a newsroom that has no patience for the person who replaced Ron Kaye, the one guy everyone knew was at least putting up a fight against cuts and layoffs. The new editor is screwed before he ever steps in the building. And no one will feel sorry for him (or her).

 

Well, that's too bad. Pete has stood on principle and paid the price for it in at least two jobs. He's never been anyone's "boy." The LADN folks have every right to be pissed, but for their own good they need to make the best of it with a guy who's far better than most options out there.

 

If Ridgeway's right about this guy (``Pete has stood on principle and paid the price for it in at least two jobs''), he ought to consider a month-to-month rental agreement.

 

Pete is indeed a good guy, but if you were working at the LADN, why wouldn't people think that it was a deal with the Devil/Singleton.

 

Maybe the guy has learned his lesson and decided, "Principle is overrated. Baby's got to eat." When people go over to the dark side, most of the time, money is the reason. And at this stage, why would Singleton/Butler waste any time on editors who have not gone over to the dark side? Do you think maybe they don't realize that "Pete's a good guy" in the eyes of his staffers, since they probably don't value that trait in an underling anyway?

 

That's a little out there, Joe. Do you really think you can assess good and evil simply by looking at who signs the paychecks? My experience is that some companies with sterling reputations have their monsters, too, and that some companies that have bad people at the top still employ some managers who do the best they can for their people given the circumstances. People go to work for crappy companies or assholes because they believe they can navigate around the sharks. Usually they get eaten alive but manage to keep their integrity. I wish I could see things the way you put them, it would make life a lot simpler.

 

http://reporter-g.blogspot.com/

From the rumor mill

Carolina Garcia, executive editor at the Monterey County Herald, is rumored to be a candidate to succeed Ron Kaye as editor of the Los Angeles Daily News.

Garcia, a Texas native, came to the Herald in 2003 after five years as managing editor at the San Antonio Express-News.

Here's a little more background from the hard-hitting Carmel Residents Association newsletter, dated April, 2003:

Carolina Garcia, one of the nation's most successful Latina journalists, is the Herald's new executive editor. For the past five years she has been managing editor of the San Antonio Express-News, where she pressed for more investigative reporting. Garcia was a grant writer for the Latin American Union for Civil Rights before joining the Milwaukee Journal as a columnist writing on Latino issues. She rose through the ranks to become assist- ant state editor and Sunday editor and, when the two Milwaukee papers merged to become the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 1995, she was named assistant managing editor, a position she held until moving to San Antonio. As chairwoman of the American Society of Newspaper Editors' diversity committee, Garcia led national efforts to encourage the hiring and promotion of minorities in the nation's newsrooms.

 

Let's channel our hate towards the shotcallers (Butler, Lambert, Moss & of course, El Dino et) and honor Ron Kaye's parting wish that his successor be extended a reasonable chance.

``Doug Hanes will be announcing my successor on Monday and I hope you will give that person the same effort and support you've given me,'' he says in a farewell memo (read the entire memo and more at LA Observed: http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/04/ron_kayes_farewell_email.php)

If that person turns out to be a schmuk, all bets are off. Let's think like assassins. Like RPM and others have pointed out, El Dino's got some bigtime $ issues, and if someone puts the squeeze on his diseased ass, might not be such a bad thing.