Sports Editor, Richmond, Va.

Any news on this one this week? I know my old boss in Indiana applied. I haven't heard if he got called in for an interview. I e-mailed him that Style Weekly story. That may change his mind, though.

 

Hi - Just taking a moment on this board to add my 2 cents. I wrote the Style story being discussed here, and a colleague pointed me this way.

I did work at the Times-Dispatch during the late 1990s (as I mentioned in my article); I've also worked for Landmark, the AP, and several small outfits. I enjoyed my time at the Times-Dispatch, where I toiled as a business reporter. I learned a lot about financial reporting, and had some of the best colleagues a reporter could ask for. I left because my wife and I decided I needed a more predictable schedule, so I joined Landmark's business weekly as its editor.

I was not disgruntled. Overall I was, and remain, quite gruntled about my experience with the T-D. The Style Weekly assignment was to write about the new editor, and to look into what was described as general discomfort in the newsroom about the editor's actions, and that of the publisher. I have covered the T-D for years as a media critic, know the newsroom, and am on first-name basis with most of its staff and half of its editors.

I do believe that newsrooms and journalists have an obligation to encourage free discussion; that was clearly presented in the article. While no private business has a legal obligation to provide information to reporters, or to offer comment when it is requested, I remain surprised that the T-D did not see the benefit of engaging in interviews or presenting its point of view.

Instead, the management demonstrated that they don't believe in talking. Now people their reporters call for quotes will have their example to fall back on. As one former local politician e-mailed me: "I couldn't stop laughing, thinking back to how many times one of their reporters told me how they have a right to know this or that. "

Jason: since you bring it up -- I have won four Best in Show awards from the Virginia Press Association for nondaily writing. Not that I'm counting.

And I was in Cracker, though it was so early in their tenure (before the first album) that I appear on no band rosters. Yes, they became famous shortly after I left. Somehow, they don't hold this against me.

Greg Weatherford

 

Good for you, Mr. Award Winner.
Let's get back to topic.
Has anyone else been in for an interview? Anyone get an offer yet? Or are they going to hire the columnist-friend-of-the-editor from Newark?

 

Former boss in Indy tells me that (a) he didn't get the gig, and (b) that an offer has been made.

 

List has been trimmed.
No offer has been made.

 

Greg, You finished with the Appy League Glance yet? Get it done, then make sure the Dollar-Gold gets moved! And you're buying later at the Texas-Wisconsin.

Good times.

 

I believe the Texas-Wisconsin is no more. At least not if you're talking Richmond. We do, however, have a whole bunch of two-star bar/bistroish places further west on Main. I think El Rio Grande closed recently, too. Warm beer and questionable fajitas. Living la vida loca, indeed.

 

Thanks for your input, Greg.

The publisher showed he is in over his head by not talking to Greg.

 

Give me a break, Gold. Every alt-weekly in the country makes a big deal out of pouncing on any problem, real or imagined, at the daily and blowing it out of proportion. And we're supposed to cooperate with that? No thanks. The proper way to deal with an alt-weekly, or any smaller competitor, is to behave as if they didn't exist, that getting into a pissing match with them is beneath you, like mating outside your species with a goat. Don't attack, don't cooperate, just ignore.

 

Agreed. It's what makes them interesting to read, but also makes them volatile and occasionally willing to jump through ethical hurdles to "make" a story.

During a vacation, one of my reporters recently attributed an alt-weekly as a source in a story about a coaching candidate. I wanted to wring his neck, especially since there was no corroberation of what he was parroting from the alt-weekly. While they occasionally produce fine work, they are almost always coming from an ax-grinding mindset, particularly the one he cited. They are not a reliable source.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love alt-weeklies and read a slew of them online, even dreamed of starting one. But in your own market, don't legitimize them by acknowledging them. You don't want readers or advertisers to get the idea that you find them credible in any way or that you consider them to be even in the same business as you are. Besides, when they call you about a story, you just know they have no intention of portraying the daily in a flattering way. We all know what the game is.

 

Webby pipeline confirms that NO offer has been made yet.