USA Today Founder and major Dave Hunke fan Al Neuharth led a ceremony at the University of South Dakota where former USAT executives Cathie Black and Frank Vega were given 2010 Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media honors.
Their public remarks at Thursday's Freedom Forum event included Neuharth's tale about a Vega caper involving 1,700 vending machines, a whole lot of bolts, and an oddly magnanimous Mayor Ed Koch of New York City.
But I would have been far more interested in what Neuharth, Black and Vega said among themselves about the current reorganization plans for the newspaper they presumably still cherish.
Monday, October 04, 2010
6 comments:
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Yes, I would love to hear Al speak even more frankly than he has about recent events at USAT. Like him or not, he still carries considerable weight in the media world and is in a unique position to really slam the happenings of the last two years at the paper he started. His opinions would make headlines here and on E&P, Romenesko, etc. I know he has to be cautious about sounding like a bitter old man, but geez, if there was ever a time for a prestigious founder to blast USAT, it's now.
ReplyDeleteYeah Iremember that! There was the controversy about the USA Today honor boxes, and workers scurried around one night and bolted them all down to the sidewalks. That led Koch to say something like "I guess they're here to stay."
ReplyDeleteToo bad those days are gone.
Instead of "The Prince of Pumpkin Island," Al Neuharth should be called "Olden D. Krepid."
ReplyDeleteLegacy-shmegacy. USA Today is practically a memory that folks reminisce about. Heck, the old lions from back in the day practically do so now on this blog, with their tawdry "Oh, remember when, blah, blah, blah..." "We used to be [in our own minds] a Great Newspaper, blah-blah-blah." "We Changed The Way The Business Was Done [set the precedent to dumb-down readers] blah, blah, blah...
What have the "young lions" done lately? I rest my case.
ReplyDeleteOne middle aged lion left after two years here in Digital. He was really friendly and left rich. Did I mention his legacy was being nice?
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone name an "excellence in the media" award after Al Neuharth?
ReplyDeleteExcellence in ego perhaps.
Excellence in bottom line.
Excellence in self aggrandizement
Oh, sorry, Al named it himself ... how unlike him.