So is McClatchy about to drop the hammer?

I've got a couple of friends on the low end of that totem pole in terms of seniority. If enough people don't take the 12 voluntary buyouts, my friends will be gone.

 

The Eagle has great K-State coverage, at least until Jeffrey Martin moves on, but I'm shocked The Star would go without its own beat writer. I never believe people saying "Screw this. I'm going to cancel my subscription" has much of an effect, but there will be a hell of a lot of K-Staters say it, and probably plenty follow through.

They've been irate with the Star since a couple semi-stupid columns came out after Frank Martin was hired, and more so since Whitlock wrote a column accusing Michael Beasley of driving a Hummer around campus, and this won't help at all. K-State is clearly third when it comes to the number of fans in the market, but there is still a very sizable fan base there.

 

I'm hearing Bradenton laid off its ME, Jim Smith. He's a sports guy from way back and worked his way to ME at Bradenton after arriving as its SE years ago. Jim's a pretty good guy. Best of luck to him.

 

The trend of axing managing editors is pretty amazing. McClatchy's Miami Herald just dropped its three co-managing editors. The Sun-Sentinel managing editor "resigned" from that Tribune paper.

Who is the M.E. in Orlando? I wouldn't be feeling good if I were him/her.

 

Well, I reckon I'd probably let go of at least two "co-managing editors" myself.

 

Then I'd like to hire you to come into my newspaper and start trimming.

 

Jim is a fine gentleman and that news truly sucks.

 

Well we only have one editor in sports, plus god knows how many writers.

 

Yeah, that's right — the other guy bailed, didn't he?

 

They were all MEs with a slash attached, the way many papers have AME/News, AME/Features, just with the better title of managing editor instead of assistant managing editor.

Can't say how it is now, but when I was there, the managers pulled their weight and then some. It was a managed newsroom. It was an interesting and rare sight to see -- there was zero waste. At my interview, the then-deputy SE told me, "It's about managing people and managing the space and managing the money." I was coming from a place where you had no idea what the news hole was until about 3 p.m. when the page dummies came up from advertising, so I had absolutely no idea of what he was talking about, although I certainly didn't admit it. It's easy to say get rid of them, but their work made a huge difference in the product as far as making maximum use of every resource. You'd have to see it -- it wasn't like other papers.