No to more job cuts. No to cuts in the quality of news on websites, at newspapers and TV stations. No to demands employees do more with less -- just to enrich fat cats at Gannett's Corporate offices. Are any publishers pushing back on Newspaper Division President Sue Clark-Johnson's demands -- as these two principled news industry executives did?- Jeffrey Johnson, publisher of the Los Angeles Times. He was forced out last year, three weeks after refusing to eliminate jobs sought by bosses at Tribune Co. "Newspapers can't cut their way into the future," Johnson told his own paper. He'd been publisher a year, and had worked for Tribune since 1984, the New York Times says.
- Jay Harris, publisher of the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, quit in 2001 after warning bosses at then-owner Knight Ridder that more job cuts risked ''significant and lasting harm to the Mercury News as a journalistic enterprise,'' the NYT said. Harris' warning came too late; the paper was thrown to corporate chop shop MediaNews Group after Knight Ridder was sold to McClatchy last year. The Merc, a late-1990s industry trendsetter, is now struggling for a future.
Of course, courage requires putting your job on the line. (And, I might add, your real name and photo on your blog. Hmmm...)
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[Image: the biggest corporate fat cat of all -- Simpsons boss C. Montgomery Burns, Fox Broadcasting]
That's rich, it really is!
ReplyDeleteI can dream, can't I? ;)
ReplyDeleteYou don't get ahead in Gannett, much less make it to publisher, by pushing back when the boss says 'jump!' Or, more to the point, 'cut!'
ReplyDeleteSad -- but probably true!
ReplyDelete