More MG News

“Our customers will be unaffected by this internal process change ..."

Really? You canNOT be serious!

 

Don't come off with the high and mighty horse crap. We have discussed that before and I don't plan on doing so again.
Now as for Proctor, The Times-Dispatch has installed a "vice president of audience and content development" over Executive Editor Glenn Proctor in a reorganization. He now reports to Frazier Millner.
Now if you don't think after being in charge of the newsroom for as long as Proctor has been in charge that such a move wasn't emasculating, then so be it. If I were in his situation, the latest corporate move wouldn't make me feel good.
That's all I'm saying. You can agree or disagree, that's your prerogative and I don't have a problem with that. However, the high and mighty crap as if you are above question, I do have a problem with.

 

Except when it comes down to deadlines ... the N.C. papers have already been given some pretty ridiculous copy deadlines, especially sports ...

 

You'd think MG's people in North Carolina would have learned from the experience of another N.C. newspaper that went the universal desk route -- the Gaston Gazette, which tried it a few years back ... didn't take long before they went back to the old way ...

 

Like the Tribune newspapers, I would expect the papers to have common nation pages, some business pages and sports pages.

Media General however will need to go to a common editing computer system--something that doesn't happen overnight.

 

This is such a good idea I'm sure all shops will eagerly be copying. Fire everybody, cut a ton of jobs and make everybody reapply with massive paycuts. It was inevitable with the papers going to the unprofitable Internet.
Are all businesses making such dumb decisions or just newspapers? Newspapers are determined to get rid of anybody who has talent is the way it appears to me.

Can you imagine being the nice SE on this thread having to interview for one of those other positions? How fired up can he be in the interview? Yessir or maam, I really want that news writing job. I will work my hardest, blah blah.
This all sickens me.

The person doing the interviewing (if he's a corporate jerk) will just love offering the jobs to people for about $20,000 less than they are making now. I can just see the smirks on the faces of those doing the interviewing. This business needs to be blown up.

 

I can't say for sure what they are doing at the metros, but my paper is in the process of going to the regional copy desk. MG offered positions in Lynchburg at the same pay for people whose jobs were cut.

 

Lynchburg hired a bunch of young design people, and something like 10-12 different papers are now designed out of the office.

 

A story announcing the changes appears in this morning's Tampa Tribune. In a paragraph explaining what copy editors and page designers do, there's -- you guessed it -- an editing error.

"Among other duties, copy editors review news articles for accuracy and style and write headlines, while and page designers lay out the newspaper.

The online version has been fixed. I will attempt to get a scan of the print edition.

I mention this not to make fun of very good people who are asked to work under impossible conditions, but to point out that the system is already pushed to the breaking point. This new strategy will only make it worse. The Tribune is my alma mater, and I'm saddened by what's happening to what used to be a proud newspaper.

 

The thing is, quality does not matter now at all. It's just getting content up the quickest and cheapest way possible.
And the crazy thing is getting it up quickly does not matter because nobody is making any money on the online product.

 

Too funny... to get my severance, I had to waive my right to sue them on the ground of ADEA.