More from Lean Dean

[Piotr Rasputin]

It is true that the technology is there to have central copy desks. And it is likely that newspapers who can, will continue to explore such ideas.

But when the head of a company makes statements about that, it might help if the company hadn't earned a reputation for underpaying and scaring off most of its best quality talent. It might help if the owner didn't earn a reputation as a biscuit who I remain shocked isn't set upon and thrashed by his employees when he tours the newsroom with his minions. It might help if the owner didn't make clear that journalism isn't important to him, and he will push good people out the door if it means making five bucks.

 

[steveu]

Jesus.

Get a clue, Dean.

 

[Armchair_QB]

Dean Singleton = Fenton Boles

 

[Dangerous_K]

here's a quote from media news president joseph lodovich:

"We have to find ways to grow revenue or become more efficient by eliminating fixed costs," Lodovic said. "Why does every newspaper need copy editors? In this day and age, I think copy-editing can be done centrally for several newspapers.''

here's the link, courtesy of romenesko:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aiV1Bphplulw&refer=us

Says a man who likely never wrote or edited a piece of copy. What he means by "have to find ways to grow revenue" is "have to find ways to put a few more bucks in the pockets of shareholders, who don't give two shirts about this industry beyond it's place on the Stock Exchange."

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

They're a private company. They're not on the stock exchange.

 

[fishwrapper]

here's a quote from media news president joseph lodovich:

"We have to find ways to grow revenue or become more efficient by eliminating fixed costs," Lodovic said. "Why does every newspaper need copy editors? In this day and age, I think copy-editing can be done centrally for several newspapers.''

here's the link, courtesy of romenesko:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aiV1Bphplulw&refer=us

Says a man who likely never wrote or edited a piece of copy. What he means by "have to find ways to grow revenue" is "have to find ways to put a few more bucks in the pockets of shareholders, who don't give two shirts about this industry beyond it's place on the Stock Exchange."

Nope. MediaNews is owned by Dean Singleton.

William Dean Singleton is the CEO of MediaNews Group, Inc..

Based in Denver Colorado, MediaNews Group is a large American newspaper company which is privately owned and controlled by CEO William Dean Singleton.

The company operates over 50 daily newspapers and 120 non-daily publications in 12 states with combined daily circulation of approximately 2.7 million. Each newspaper maintains a web site focused on local news content, which is aggregated under the umbrella site newschoice.com.

MediaNews Group has joint ventures with a number of other media companies. These include a California newspaper partnership with Gannett Company, another California venture with Hearst Corporation and several Colorado ventures with E.W. Scripps Company.

CEO Singleton is known as an acquisition-minded and numbers-oriented newspaper executive who focuses on cost controls. At the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in April 2006, he said that newspapers have become insular and boring. "We've got to make them much more compelling than they are today," he said. "As an industry, for the last 30 years we've edited newspapers for each other and to win awards so we could pat each other on the back."

Singleton has said that he would not take his company public because he would lose control. "I can't imagine having the Wall Street analysts run my company for me," he said.

 

[Dangerous_K]

...

shirt. Even worse. My mistake, but boy...even worse.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

To be fair, MediaNews is owned by Singleton and Richard Scudder.

 

[fishwrapper]

To be fair, MediaNews is owned by Singleton and Richard Scudder.

To be fair, Richard Scudder is a figurehead.

 

[Tracy Ringolsby]

To be fair Scudder is the money man and Scudder's get is getting some control of the family money and he isn't real happy with the lack of return. Plus did you not see that there is growing concern on Wall Street about the finances of Media News and the loan rating is in jeopardy of being dropped.

 

[fishwrapper]

Go back one page and see my post, posted two months ago.

It starts "Here is the problem with the man and his plan."...
Wall Street doesn't play into this. His lenders do. Here comes more blood from the turnips...

 

[DanOregon]

Barring a turnaround in the newspaper industry, Media News will eventually succumb to its debt, much like a house flipper when the market goes soft. The business plan is based on a faulty premise.