Ominous news at Tampa Tribune

The Tribune already is part of the Consolidated Editing Center.

 

Indeed, that isn't unique, although the condemnation from even outside the industry seems to be particularly sharp. For example, I had to blink twice in amazement when I read something very blunt written a few weeks ago by an investment market analyst:

"Horrific management and governance: MEG's management team is awful. CEO Marshall Morton has led MEG's overpaying acquisition spree in digital media, acquiring Blackdot and DealTaker in recent years. DealTaker recently suffered a big set back in February 2011 when Google altered its search algorithm. Since then, MEG is blowing money on consultants to help fix this issue but as of Q2 2011 has nothing to show for it except continuing declining sales and negative cash flow for this segment."

The complete post is here: http://www.kinnaras.com/cblog/index.php?/archives/94-Media-General-This-Pig-Might-Fly.html . It's extremely dense and sort of ponderous, but, interestingly, the analyst thinks investors can make money if certain things happen.

 

Was there some feud that would prevent, or at least make it very difficult for Fennelly to go to The Times?

Or is it just that the Poynter crowd would make him not dress like a homeless douchebag when he goes to work?

 

I could see this winding up like Denver. Tampa folds and a handful of writers, Fennelly and Kaufman would seem to be the most obvious, head across town...

 

Won't happen. The Times has a full compliment of staffers already and, in fact, has been shedding staff. I strongly doubt the additional advertising revenue the Times conceivably would get from the demise of the Tribune would allow them to add to the payroll when they're already deeply in the red. In fact, word has it that the Times took out a second mortgage on its building two or three years ago ... that's not a happy thing.

Indeed, the collapse of the Tribune actually could precipitate darker days for the Times if it causes a portion of the population -- or, more specifically, advertisers -- to simply give up on the newspaper medium entirely.

This is highly speculative, because I don't believe the Tribune is shutting down any time soon, but what I suspect would happen if the presses go dark is that a handful of newsroom employees would move into the converged TBO.com/WFLA-TV operation because *someone* has to provide content for it, and everyone else would go home.

What's more likely in the next five or 10 years: the Tribune is sold to another company, with the provision that a JOA with the website and TV station be established to continue the three-headed convergence monster.

 

The Denver Post had gotten rid of some staff shortly before adding a handful of writers from the RMN. I would be very surprised if the Tribune shut down and a few of the writers didn't wind up at The Times.

Lord knows, I've been wrong with my predictions as to when the Tampa Tribune would close and that was with a friend who works there telling me what was being said around the office.

 

Anything anyone says right now is going to be speculative, and a large extent wrong.

 

Finally someone in the financial community says what the front-line employees at MG have been saying for decades (and this goes back to when MG stock was trading at $70-plus a share) ...

 

Amen. Speaking as someone whose 401(k) was wrapped up in a lot of that $70 stock.

 

But at least Marshall Morton or Morton Marshall or Marsbar Marshmallow or whatever his name is made $1.98 million in 2010. So he must be doing SOMETHING right, no?

 

Know a lot of people in that situation ... big fans of the management ...

 

Apparently, one of the first steps for the Media General task force is replacing the top leaders.

http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2011/nov/02/2/leadership-changes-announced-at-tribune-and-wfla-ar-300126/