More from Lean Dean

"Shitty" does not mean "dishonest," budcrew.

Sure it's shitty. But as lono said on a previous page, there's more to life than continuing to put up with this crap.

Do not make the mistake of questioning someone's love for journalism just because they are also concerned with feeding their family, and with having peace of mind.

 

Scudder's still alive? I thought he died years ago -- about the time he buried my first failed paper...

 

Why fight the this fight now? It's too late. Singleton already won, right?. Fair enough question. But I believe there is value in taking the fight to Singleton because at a time that he is under tremendous pressure from creditors, the last thing Lean Dean needs is negative publicity. Somehow, he's managed to slip under the radar while assembling this empire. Nobody (outside the journalism business, that is) really cared because he was bottom-feeding struggling properties. Now he's a high-profile Baron, his empire's legitimacy now hinges on his ability to maintain a semblance of respectability. I believe the more people know about Lean Dean and how he runs his newspapers, the less comfortable they'll be with him as a guardian of the Fourth Estate. By damaging his public image when he is vulnerable, I believe it is more likely that he'll be forced to surrender his properties to creditors, who hopefully would be more benevolent (they can't be any worse).
BTW, I'm not MK, nor do I think any of us on this board should be in the business of trying to out one and other. Whether MK's going public with his layoff story at LANG is prudent is questionable, but it was courageous. What is courageous is often imprudent.

 

Re: LA Daily News

Is the managing editor, Melissa Lalum, still in place?

 

You say his empire "now hinges on his ability to maintain a semblance of respectability."
And you state "empire's legitimacy now hinges on his ability to maintain his public image when he is vulnerable."
Let me sum this up for you another way. Dean Singleton makes over $2.5 million a year as Chairman and CEO of MediaNews. That's more than the combined income of Arthur Sulzberger ($1.09 million) and Donald Graham ($1.5 million est.) collect for being publishers.
These postmortem notes are touching and gripping, yet unfortunately, it's spitting on a wildfire.

 

I'll cede the point that Lean Dean escapes the collapse of his empire a rich man. But if a better company takes over the properties, we will all benefit. No slam dunk, for sure, but it could happen.

 

A better company doesn't want the properties, which is how he ended up with them in the first place. When McClatchy swallowed KR -- a move that's looking worse by the minute -- it didn't look at, say, the Mercury News and see a bastion of journalistic excellence (whatever that means anymore).

It saw a property struggling in a non-growth market. Enter Singleton, whose "specialty" is buying up such papers, clustering them and cutting them to the bone. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

Just to cheer you guys up, it's amazing the number of personally ruinous lawsuits that can be and are filed against CEOs by irritated stockholders and bondholders who become bagholders when a mismanaged firm slides head-first into Chapter 11.
If Media News sinks, Singleton might not find a lifeboat.

 

This sums up the Lean Dean reign of terror.

http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/2008/04/us_journalist_photo_documents_impact_of.php

 

At this week's association of electronic media conference in Vegas, this will happen and cost a few jingling quarters:

"This will also be my first exposure to an NAA tradition of several years standing -- a later night party organized by Dean Singleton, sponsored by his MediaNews, Gannett and USA Weekend and featuring a vintage rock star.

This year's performer (perhaps not a household name to you Gen Xers, Yers and Millennials) is Johnny Rivers."

www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=123&aid=141347


Johnny Rivers? Isn't he about 142 years old?

 

pretty appropriate considering Rivers preformed "Poor Side of Town."

 

Melissa is still the ME. That she still has her position is one of the reasons the entire newsroom has not completely revolted.