Advertiser gets editor canned

I know it's a blog entry but I figured you might still be interested in this story ...

http://www.publiceyeonline.com/archives/002606.html#more

Victoria News editor Keith Norbury was fired today, Public Eye has exclusively learned, two days after one of his senior reporters - Brennan Clarke - resigned. The firing follows an advertiser complaint about an article published earlier this month by the newspaper. In an interview, Vancouver Island News Group president Mark Warner confirmed Mr. Norbury's forced departure was, in part, connected to the complaint. "There were a number of issues," he said. "But that was certainly one of them." Mr. Warner declined to say what those other issues may have been. Nor would he elaborate on how the complaint was connected to the firing.


NOTE: The car story is reprinted at the bottom of the blog.

 

Should this come as a surprise to anyone?

The way newspaper executives view journalists....they are a non-revenue producing entity. In their minds, who gives a shit if people actually buy a newspaper because of editorial content. If it can't be bottom-lined and show a quarterly profit, to hell with it.

Assholes.

 

Nothing like pandering to a pissed-off advertiser.

So, dear sir/madam, are you upset that no one is buying your product. Either take a look at the quality of the product, its price or perhaps both. Don't blame the publication for what is a good story.

Unless the emissions standards are drastically different in Canada and the U.S. - and I don't believe they are - then what's the problem? I know of one dealer back home that was known for charging roughly $1,000 more for the same vehicle than a competitor barely 10 miles down the road that was selling the same thing. I made absolutely sure to tell my friends, many of whom were typically interested in said vehicles.

Back to the firing, the other possibility - one not mentioned - is that the company was looking for any silly excuse to can the editor and conveniently got one with this story.

 

Publisher math: News hole = lost advertising sales

 

About five years ago at our place, we did a Business story on selling your own home. The Realtors got pissed, one wrote a letter to the editor ("You wouldn't perform surgery on yourself, would you?") ... and we ran a lot of free make-good ads and advertorials for local real estate agents.

 

Heads would have rolled at my hometown paper over this. I found that they have a realtors' ball every year - and force all the editors and management to attend.

 

A realtors ball (yes, fuck you I didn't capitalize it you fucking scumsucking lying asshole motherfuckers) ... now that sounds like a great time. I'd go just so I could drop a hundred tabs of mescaline into the punch bowl. Fuckabuncha realtors.

 

A former paper once had to give an advertiser a free color ad because a reporter had the temerity to call and ask whether the company knew its wireless Internet was unsecured. Reporter had spent a few hours riding around with some computer guru with one of those tools that can detect signals. Story never did run...

 

If you've been assigned to write or edit a story about the auto business, start polishing your resume. Nothing but trouble.

 

Face it, in small papers we are not journalists. We are talking heads (or pens) for the local mall, parents and businesses. Every once in a while we get a big story. But most of the time editors are puppets.

 

Once upon a time I went to a writing seminar and the trainer kept saying, "give me something for my quarter." This writer gave the reader something for his money. I thought the story was pretty solid, and it would have been irresponsible to ignore it. If the local car dealer doesn't like losing the business, he should find ways to lower his own prices rather than run someone out of a job. This is horrible, but sadly, it's not unusual.

 

Three for three.
World's getting strange.