Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Black Tuesday At The Star
The Indianapolis Star continues it descent into oblivion as parent company Gannett ordered the layoffs of 62 employees at the local publication, including 15% of its newsroom staff. Eight reporters and twelve copy editors were axed according to the IBJ. "The Indianapolis Star, I’ve been told repeatedly, continues to make money," reporter Robert King wrote in an e-mail according to the IBJ. "Yet Gannett, and its corporate bosses in Virginia, seem to view workers not as assets but as liabilities on a balance sheet." Ouch! The Star's newsroom staff has shrunk from 230 in 2007 to 136 after this latest round of layoffs.
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8 comments:
Perhaps the reduction in force is really due to declining interest in The Star??? Gannett brought a Left Coast Liberal Editor to Indianapolis and the change in the newspaper is very noticeable.
I had been a subscriber for about 15 years, but I disagreed with the leftist slant that the Left Coast editor imposed. I finally canceled my subscription. I no longer read it, and rarely look at their web site for any news.
The problem is that Gannett and it's Left Coast Editor have been imposing their leftist slant into the newspaper and it just is not fitting in with Central Indiana values. The paper is now an "outsider" that Central Indiana tolerates, instead of a neighbor that is part of the community.
Sorry, Gannett & its lefty Editor just don't belong in Central Indiana and it appears Gannett realizes that fact.
Indy4u2c that's part of the problem. Probably a bigger problem is that fewer people read the hard copy newspaper. Until newspapers can adopt to 21st Century delivery system for their content they are going to continue to struggle.
THEY DON'T DO ANY REPORTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ryckaert, Tuohy, et al., run cop press releases without ever making the cops justify every line of the release.
I'm going to pay for this propaganda?
Investigate. Report. Doubt everything the cops say until the facts support their story. For Pete's sake, do some flippin' reporting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ditto also for Mitch, Ballard, the DeLaneys, Barnes & Thornburg, Keystone Construction, Downtown developments, etc.
I'm not going to pay to get handed a party line, a press release or a Chamber of Commerce, Colts, Super Bowl Committee or IDI public-financing scam.
I think that Ind4u2c stumbled over an issue:
There is no leftist slant to the Star, yet for people who are used to Fox News, it probably appears that way. There's remarkably little appreciation for journalism these days, and the Star doesn't know how to remake itself. As crappy as Fox is as a source of journalism, at least it does know how to be profitable as it's polluting the airwaves.
The Star has been on a steadily downward slope - simply republishing news releases and doing little actual reporting.
Heaven knows it's tried to step into the internet age, with blogs, reader comments, photo collections, etc. It's just that giving away your product for free makes it tough to make money.
I feel badly for the employees who lost their jobs, and also for the ones who didn't. Waiting for the ax sucks.
There is certainly nothing leftist in the Star's editors pushing the agenda of the downtown elites down our throats daily without scrutinizing the least bit their self-dealing ways that continually serve up a raw deal to average taxpayers. Ryerson flat out rejects the notion that there is any Pay to Play going on between the people bankrolling the politicians' campaigns and the huge public giveaways and subsidies of their private business concerns. I can't understand how someone in his position could fail to pick up on an issue that virtually every other major newspaper in America has harped on both in their news coverage and editorials.
Do these criticisms mean that there is a possible opening for a profitable new newspaper that's (a) conservative, and (b) does energetic reporting?
How about a NEUTRAL newspaper that actually investigates and reports.
That way, both sides would have to either mind their P's & Q's, or end up on the front page.
One of the reasons Star reporters don't investigate and report like they used to is that they have to churn out 2-3 stories a day. They don't have time for in depth reporting.
The Star is trying to adapt to losing circulation by overloading reporters and jetisoning in depth, investigatory reporting. But then they lose more circulation because people don't want to buy the newspaper if it doesn't contain quality, investigative reporting about local events.
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