Comments on: ‘You want me on that wall! You need (a good journalist) on that wall!’

By: Scholars and Rogues » Where great PR and bad journalism collide: the Denver Post strikes again

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:53:00 +0000

[...] we were presented with a front-page, above-the-fold case study in what happens when budget cuts drive too many professionals out of the newsroom and talent that might once have served the public interest in a journalistic role turns to public [...]

By: Scholars and Rogues » Making innovate and profit for survive journalism

Scholars and Rogues » Making innovate and profit for survive journalism — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 04:29:33 +0000

[...] dilute the quality of his commentary by trying to add to it. I’ll only say this. A good many talented reporters have lost their jobs to every manner of stupidity that a legion of slack-jawed corporate executives [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:33:05 +0000

Thanks for toughing out all those years so that we can benefit from your knowledge in your words.

By: Justin Tyme

Justin Tyme — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:42:21 +0000

The profit-driven corporate media owners and the media consultants have killed the idea of journalism as a public trust.
Reporters are now just there to provide an audience for advertising.

By: jeff watson

jeff watson — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:47:11 +0000

Great Post.

Jeff

By: cwmackowski

cwmackowski — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:30:47 +0000

Assets like your encyclopedic Rolodex and your institutional memory don’t show up on a balance sheet, but they have always been a newspaper’s most valuable assets. Because they don’t show, bean counters dismiss them–and, in the process, have dismissed the very relevance of their papers.

Great post, Denny.

By: Brian Angliss

Brian Angliss — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:12:57 +0000

And people like me will never get a chance – my salary and benefit needs are too expensive for any outfit given my lack of training and experience. With all the experienced and trained environmental and science journalists being laid off from Tribune, NYTimes, Gannett, et al, a blogger who effectively pays for the privilege of being a journalist couldn’t possibly find a job.

Hell, even freelancers don’t like people like me, because I’m doing work “for free” that they could potentially make money off of, and that pushes pay rates down. And I can’t say that I blame them, frankly.

What a screwed up system.

By: Russ Wellen

Russ Wellen — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:58:49 +0000

Thanks, Dr. D, for showing us just what we’re losing.

“I knew the public-service mission: Protect the readers. Find the facts, and tell readers what they need to know.”

And this was devastating. . .

“But in today’s Sam Zell universe, I’d be toast. I’d have been bought out years ago or laid off. I would have become an extraordinary expense in the chase for maximizing shareholder profit. . .”

Re: “But it takes well-trained, experienced journalists fully supported by adequate organizational resources to find out stuff readers need to know. ”

That’s what everybody, including the likes of Arianna Huffington, forgets. You need to be subsidized to spend your days researching, investigating, and traveling for a story. As an Internet writer, I’m more aware than most how my efforts are circumscribed by lack of funding (not to mention training).

Thanks for a crucial post, Dr. D.

By: Atlanta

Atlanta — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:28:33 +0000

Thank you!!