Dateline: Liberal, KS --- Staff walks out of old paper, starts a new paper

I knew you wouldn't disappoint me.

 

Are Yawn and BYH the same person?

 

Saw this today. Apparently the new paper has been doing some "borrowing" when it comes to its design:

http://www.visualeditors.com/apple/2008/05/and-yet-another-post-about-the-start-up-paper-in-liberal-kansas/

 

Ouch. It is a fairly sharp-looking little paper, though, despite the nasty ad stripped across the top of the front page.

 

I rather liked the preceding post about the new paper, noting that the new paper has picked off 18 of 22 full-timers from the old paper.

Yawn ... believe me, you weren't harsh enough in your rewrite.

 

And it could get complicated.

Earl Watt could easily go to the local governments and say that the Southwest Daily Times isn't much of a local paper because the shots are being called by the owners in another state. I think that there is a chance that he might win them over.

But, the weekly in town is also local. And the publisher has been trying to pull the legals over his way for years. The weekly can claim that they've been in business longer.

And Liberal is a city in which the English-speaking population is in decline. Papers there offer some Spanish-language products. But there are also independant Spanish newspapers in the area.

 

OK, here we go .... with feeling ... and a 1 and a 2 and a ...

The Times, a top award-winning three times a week newspaper that won awards back when we were a daily newspaper in Liberal, KS, a city name we intend to change because Dubya's not conservative enough for our tastes, has an immediate need for a managing editor, reporters and sports writers, along with ad reps, press crew, bookkeepers, receptionists, graphic designers, ad salespeople ... hell, anybody who wants to be a scab can come on down! We are rebuilding a completely new team at the Times because 82 percent of the old team got so disgusted with us they walked out and started their own paper. Management has the highest commitment to excellence, as long as it doesn't cost us money. This will be the kind of newspaper where you can really make a difference, because it's not like anybody here can say they've been here longer than you have. Experienced preferred, but we will work to train the right people as soon as we figure out who they are and can talk them into working for peanuts. Contact Michael Schuver at mschuver@lminews.com for more information, assuming my e-mail is working this week because our IT people don't have any experience working with the operating systems we actually use at our newspapers. (We promise not to force our employees not to tithe 10 percent of their paychecks to our home church in Gadsden, Ala., anymore — at least, until the church is ready for another construction project.)

 

That BLOG! also says two more writers came over yesterday, for a total of 18.

 

If these mighty warriors lose this war, the common people have absolutely no hope. Corporate sewage will rule forever.

 

I've seen through the the last eight years the SW"D"Times become a decent small-town paper to crap. I know the local juco men's basketball team was third in the nationl this year, and I don't think they had much coverage.

Good luck to the new paper and Earl Watt.