Carole Leigh out in San Jose

Yes. On top of the lenient treatment of Mr. Albom, then a memo during her brief stay in San Jose stressing that the staffers worry about good journalism among talk of layoffs in the newsroom.

Yup, a real keeper we got here ...

 

It was. But that sucker ended up on the NY Times Bestsellers' list for like seven months.

I showed up home from work one day, and my was wife fresh from a trip to the bookstore.
There It was. On my counter.
I threw up a little bit in my mouth.

 

For a starter, think I

 

The ideas that she was apparently endorsing to "reinvent" the paper were/are remarkably dumb. The effort to survey the community was completely fraudulent. She apparently was sitting back and letting some newsroom opportunists try to make their mark and get mentioned in Columbia Journalism Review instead of doing their jobs.

 

Sounds just like Mary Stier, when Gannett pushed her out at the DM Register.

I'm still waiting for the day when Gannett gives the Register to Lee Enterprises and end this tyranny of destroying "The Newspaper Iowa Depends On."

Speaking in which, I'm naive when it comes to when newspaper corps move publishers and editors around as a means to "streamline" a particular paper. Can you guys give me a general insight on what goes on when editors and publishers get moved out and new ones shows up, only to get the heave ho shortly after?

 

If "reinventing" the paper means draconian space cuts, combining of sections into one and a general dumbing down of the product, than by all means Carole Leigh succeeded.

We can bitch all we want about Knight-Ridder on this board -- and we have -- but under K-R San Jose was a paper that kicked major league ass. It's fallen so far and so fast, even the SF Chron has been better on most days.

Considering my opinion of the Chron hasn't been high most days, that's saying something.

 

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

 

Having a vice president from corporate be your news editor cannot be a good thing.

 

Most corporate suits running newspaper companies think they're making widgets.
That is all.

 

He was an editor. He sucked.

 

The BANG as its now known, appears to be like the Russian Federation eager to stamp down any dissident papers. An interesting note is that there have been quite a few independent papers aimed at smaller geographic or ethnic groups since Singleton wrapped up the East and South Bay.
I've never met a Singleton exec I thought highly of. They walk around with a sense that they know that everyone else knows they are just hired thugs.
Back in the day an editor boasted about his new directive demanding three briefs and a story a day out of his business staff with the line "the lash across the back works wonders." Of course this guy was such a tool he sent it out to "all" instead of just the top editors.