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May 9, 2012 12:31 PM
9 newsroom buyouts at the Hartford Courant (updated)
This is the latest in a series of departures since Tribune's 2008 bankruptcy filing
First, a disclosure: I have a soft spot for the Hartford Courant. It’s my hometown daily. I interned there twice during college, and they later hired me for two freelance stints when I was between jobs. As an intern, back in 2006 and then 2007, the newsroom was an inspiring place—Matthew Kauffman and Lisa Chedekel won a Dart Award for...
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June 13, 2011 03:46 PM
A Broken Lede
The government isn’t “broke.” Reporters should stop saying it is.
The Associated Press has an important story today about the fairly horrifying condition of many state budgets. On its site, Politico has a rewrite of the AP story. That’s a good thing: the fiscal retrenchment that’s going to result from steep state deficits seems likely to be a big, bad deal for the economy over the next couple years, and...
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December 16, 2011 06:20 PM
Audit Notes: Walmart Rewrite, AMR’s Strategic Default, Debtors’ Prison
When The Huffington Post's Lila Pearl Shapiro wrote a critical story about Walmart's labor practices earlier this week, the company gave it a sort of reprint in its internal news service. It just happened to leave out all the pesky critical parts: A day after The Huffington Post published an article that examined a new effort to organize workers at...
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September 6, 2012 12:05 PM
Journal Register, future-of-news star, is bankrupt again
Takeaways for the newspaper business
Yesterday, John Paton announced that Journal Register Company is filing for bankruptcy for the second time in three years. That’s something of a surprise to people who've read his announcements of soaring digital revenues and profits credulously. JRC’s (latest) bankruptcy declaration is not good news to an already demoralized news business. But it’s an occasion to rethink old assumptions about...
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October 23, 2012 12:50 PM
Let Detroit do what?
New interest in an old Op-Ed
What is the most viewed story on The New York Times website right now? It's an Op-Ed piece from nearly four years ago, November 18 2008. The author is one Mitt Romney, who may regret the headline: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt. The reason, of course, is that the piece came up in Monday night's debate, followed by a long debate...
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September 12, 2012 06:50 AM
Open letter to John Paton, CEO of Digital First Media
In the wake of the Journal Register's second Chapter 11 filing, Bill Grueskin writes a "Dear John" letter about its failed digital strategy
Dear John, You and I have never met, but we have corresponded—a bit testily at times (more on that later). In light of last week’s news, I wanted to follow up with another round of correspondence, and this time I’m doing it publicly, via the Columbia Journalism Review. I hope you’ll respond, because I know you are a believer in...
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December 14, 2011 03:31 PM
Reuters Finds AMR’s Cost-Cutting Missed a Biggie
AMR's discreet $30 million house exposed in a securities filing
Back in 2006, BusinessWeek wrote a story about AMR's "penny-pinching," "cost-cutting culture": When it comes to pinching pennies, few full-fare airlines can match American. During his long tenure as American Airlines' chief executive, Robert Crandall loved to boast that his decision to remove a single olive from passengers' dinner salads saved $40,000 a year. BizWeek touted then-CEO Gerard Arpey as...
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