“It’s worth fighting for”

Jul 2, 2008

“It’s worth fighting for”

This evening at the Trib, editor in chief Janet Coats sat in a rolling chair in the center of the newsroom while everyone gathered around for the latest news on layoffs.

She went over the list of who was layed off and why. Then she reexplained that 10 more layoffs were to come in the following weeks and how the newsroom would start reorganizing around its new business model.

It was a hard plan for some people to accept. The fact Janet made up her own crazy new business model for a newspaper without a prototype or any idea where it would take her was frightening to a lot of people. They didn’t seem to like an emphasis on changing the reporting model to focus on immediacy instead of the beat system. That didn’t stop her.

There would be mistakes, she said. And sometimes those in charge would fuck up. But there is nothing else to do.

“We can see a better future for journalism right across the bridge on the other side, but the bridge is on fire, and if we just stand here, we are going to burn up with it.”

A few hands shot up into the air.

“Does this mean the Tribune isn’t bringing in any profits?” someone asked

“The Tribune hasn’t been bringing in profits for a long time … This isn’t about profit margins anymore … We weren’t even in the black this year.”

“How is this new model going to affect our competition with The St. Petersburg Times?”

That set Janet off on quite a diatribe.

First, she said people needed to stop thinking of the Times as competition. She said she understood that it’s hard to think that way when the paper is right across the Bay, but that it is the truth. Not every story will be covered and it won’t be covered in the same way the SPT will cover it. The Trib simply doesn’t have the resources for the old business model.

“I hope (The St. Petersburg Times) keeps doing more of the same,” she said. “I’d like to see them try and do it with a reduced staff. It will only make us stronger.”

Then she dropped the reality bomb:

“People need to stop looking at TBO.com as an add on to The Tampa Tribune,” she said. “The truth is that The Tampa Tribune is an add on to TBO.”

Wow. Someone said that? And that someone was the editor in chief? But wait… there’s more.

She continued from this point, saying she wasn’t sure, but that this had to be a step in the right direction. If we don’t move, she said, newspapers will continue their “death spiral - because that’s what this is.”

She compared newspapers to the music industry. Having increased access to music has undermined the corporate giants of the music industry. They are not making money, but demand is just as high if not higher than it ever has been.

That’s how the news is, she said. There is a high demand for it, but with abundant access to it, it’s time to rethink how we can carve out a niche. Her idea? Hyperlocal journalism.

A sports reporter in the Tallahassee bureau was layed off for no other reason other than the fact that it didn’t make sense to keep a full-time staff member there. The layoff was purely geographic. It’s better to keep one more reporter in Tampa than a sports reporter in a town about four hours north of Tampa.

Now there will be more of an emphasis on the hyperlocal and giving the community news about itself. If they want national news, they have several national news sources to get it. Instead, the Trib should be used to give the community something they can’t get from the NY Times or WaPo. Give them their news.

Through most of this meeting, I just wanted to shout, “Amen!” and “You go girl!” because Janet understands what’s up. She can see the trend in the industry: Innovate or obliterate. She stressed more than several times that if newspapers don’t change then NEWSPAPERS WILL DIE.

It’s hard, she admitted. Sometimes she feels temptation to get out of this business and join PricewaterhouseCoopers where she can have a decent salary and lifestyle. But then she thinks of the role of a news organization, and she knows she could never do that.

“This is who I am,” Janet said. “If you asked me who I am, I would first respond that I’m a journalist - probably before I even said I’m a mother.”

Janet believes in the news industry. She believes in holding government, media and the public accountable. And she knows there is not another job that makes such a huge difference and weilds such power. News organizations offer society so much, and that is why she cannot take another job - because journalism is her calling, and she knows there is nothing else she could ever imagine herself doing.

“It’s worth fighting for,” Janet said.

Out of all her quoteable moments, those were the words that stuck with me. It was that powerful statement that conveyed the hope, faith and prayers of all journalists worldwide. That maybe this industry can’t be demolished because of its importance and that maybe our love and passion for it could be enough to keep it running.

Well, it’s going to take more than love and passion. That love and passion must move us to find solutions to keep our industry, our jobs and our identities alive and well. Still, it’s going to take passionate people like Janet Coats to figure it out.

People might be angry or frightened by what Janet is saying, but she’s right, and they need to start recognizing that. She is doing this because she cares. That woman is not only carrying the burdens of an entire newsroom on her shoulders, but the burdens of a community entitled to quality news. And I know she’s taking the right steps.

On my way out of the newsroom, I saw Janet hobbling on her crutches (she broke her ankle) on her way to the elevator and talking to someone. I wanted to tell her how much I supported what she did, but I didn’t want to interupt. Plus, I’m just an intern. But if I had the chance, I would have said this:

Janet, you’re my hero, and I think this is worth fighting for too.

241 Comments, Comment or Ping

drew

journalism is so serious

Jul 2nd, 2008
Patrick Beeson

This is a fantastic entry Jessica.

I think the Tribune is doing exactly what needs to be done — something very few are willing to do in this industry.

What kind of support does Janet have from the higher-ups in advertising and circulation? From the publisher?

Not sure if an intern is privy to such things, but I’d be interested to get their thoughts.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Hilary

I love this.

Thank goodness for people who are willing to fight. I commented on that Hartford Courant blog I sent you that complacency is the enemy of newspapers, and I think it’s true.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Abe

If I were your boss, I’d fire you for posting this. Is this your first job?

Jul 3rd, 2008
Richard Pachter

Yes, indeed it is.

The sad thing is that this stuff should have been figured out and implemented about 10 years ago.

Just hope it’s not too late.

Nice job, though, Jessica.

(PS: it’s “laid” and not “layed,” btw.)

Jul 3rd, 2008
John

Question: If it is “better to keep one more reporter in Tampa than a sports reporter in a town about four hours north of Tampa”, then why not simply bring that sports reporter back Tampa instead of laying him off? This isn’t a case of keeping one more reporter here than there, it’s a case of having one fewer reporter at your paper, period. And from all things that have been said about that particular sports reporter, it seems like he was a true asset to the paper:

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/index.php/topic,58169.0.html

Other points that caught my eye:
– “Sometimes she feels temptation to get out of this business and join PricewaterhouseCoopers where she can have a decent salary and lifestyle.”

A decent salary and lifestyle compared to whom? The lowly peons working there (or the ones who just got laid off)? As editor-in-chief, I sincerely doubt she is struggling to make ends meet. But it’s good to know she always has that fallback route. Now, as for the people who just got axed …

– The apparent solutions presented are nothing new in this industry and have already been tried at various other places, including the elimination of the beat system and similar organizations of the personnel. To any journalist who has worked in the biz for a few years, hyperlocalism is old news, and it has been used by management more as a veiled justification for cuts in budget and staff than as a real mechanism for positive change. How does drastically eliminating staff improve your local coverage (you can make up for national coverage with wire content, but you need bodies for the local)?

Let me ask you this: If you went to Janet, or any other top exec in this industry, right now with solid evidence that people want better national coverage in their paper, do you think they will embrace that approach as much as they are embracing hyperlocal?

– Her point about the web site needing to be the primary product is a good one.

Sometimes heroism and villainy are just different perspectives on the same action.

Jul 3rd, 2008
alex

great writing, I’ll use this for inspiring my students next year about local journalism and the news industry (I teach journalism over in the UK).

Jul 3rd, 2008
Wenalway

Through most of your post, I did not want to shout “You go, girl!”

It’s sophomoric and juvenile. Clearly you have no clue about concepts such as basic spelling.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Syd

A lot of this is old news. We’ve been hearing this for more than two years in my company.
At some of the mid-size papers, hyperlocal news has been the focus for awhile. Many of the larger dailies are still a little behind the curve ball.

Jul 3rd, 2008
JTFLoore

well, OF COURSE the primary franchise of a local newspaper is its local coverage. hasn’t it ALWAYS been that way? why do so many newspapers seem to be finding that out only now? what the hell have they been thinking all these years?

i am at a loss to understand why a sports reporter, of all things, would have EVER been based in a town four hours away from the home office.

newspaper executives are talking a lot these days about “business models,” but it is painfully obvious that they lost sight of the business model of local news coverage in the local newspaper long ago. WHY?

further, newspapers are now GIVING AWAY on the internet the one thing they have always had to sell: local news coverage and in-depth analysis that NO ONE ELSE is or will provide. newspaper executives bemoan declining subscriptions and revenues, but they have plenty of readers on the internet. the point is, why in the world would the public BUY something they can get FREE? exactly what kind of business model is THAT?

one by one, newspapers — which historically have been incompetent at marketing themselves — have been cutting their own throats ever since the advent of the internet. i love being able to read newspapers from across the country on the internet, but they are not making any money off me.

indeed, newspapers have been doing everything they can to PUSH paying readers TO the free internet. that’s a “business model” for extinction. but it continues.

Jul 3rd, 2008
wes

Abe’s comment is typically old-school in that way that is making newspapers die. Welcome to the new world where this is actually not only a great entry, but important as part of the recovery process of this paper. Great job Jessica

Jul 3rd, 2008
Andy Staples

Jessica,
I admire your enthusiasm. You remind me of myself when I was a plucky young intern at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. You might have heard of that paper. It’s the one that more than a year ago instituted “revolutionary” changes similar to the ones you so breathlessly praised. Well guess what? Reporters at that paper settled back into a beat structure because that’s the most effective way to gather news. Janet is trying to reinvent the wheel, and that’s admirable. But the fact of the matter is newspapers are going to die because in an age when we can get news from across the world in a matter of seconds, the idea of printing the news once a day on dead trees seems hopelessly nostalgic.

And if Janet doesn’t think St. Pete is competition, she needs to wake up. If I ran Poynter, I’d pump every last penny I had in savings into Hillsborough County and crush the Trib. The newspaper is a horrible business model, but it’s still the only one that makes money. (By the way, the Trib is not in the red. I received those Media General quarterly earnings statements in my e-mail box for the five-and-a-half-years I worked at the Trib, and there’s no way the paper is losing money. If it was, MG would have sold it for parts.)

The only thing that can save the local newsgathering organizations we now call newspapers is finding and retaining good people. On that account, Janet severely screwed the pooch when she laid off Scott Carter. There is still dead weight on the sports staff. Instead of laying off a valuable person to save a few thousand bucks in relocation fees, the Trib could have cut a slacker, brought Scott back to Tampa and allowed him to continue to practice the kind of journalism Janet covets so. Instead, the paper will pay more in actual dollars and in creative capital for jettisoning a valuble employee and keeping people who don’t earn their paychecks.

I hope you have a long, prosperous career in journalism. My guess is that you’ll end up writing for a Web site, just as I do now. Newspapers died a long time ago, so don’t waste your time kissing your boss’s butt for her most recent attempt to prop up the corpse.

Jul 3rd, 2008
G wells

Nice to get insider stuff. Sad that it comes from an intern who one would think is the future of journalism who can’t even spell laid off.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Jessica DaSilva

@Patrick - I’m not really privy to the information, but if I hear anything, I’ll post it.

@Abe - I was originally worried about it, but there’s an open atmosphere at the Trib about my blogging. And today, I was complimented by the managing editor for my coverage. Janet also told me she appreciated my words of support. I know if there were a problem, they would let me know; if there were a problem, I would leave the topic alone.

@Richard - Thanks, I always get that confused.

@John - It is purely geographic. The admins praised Scott as a good reporter, but there are other resources to get the news about the Seminoles in the paper. To my knowledge, that’s the story.

Also, Janet might not be trying to maker her personal ends meet, but she is desperately trying to find a way to tie up those loose ends in the newsroom. And you have to admit that a job that doesn’t require you reducing your work staff from 250 to about 200 seems a lot less stressful.

Drastically eliminating the staff has nothing to do with improving local coverage. The Trib has no choice in how many people they can afford to pay - that issue is black and white. Profits are plummeting and they can’t do it anymore.

And maybe these ideas have been tried before, but were the times as desperate? Were 900 journalists getting laid off in one week? All I’ve heard from the old-timers is “Times have always been bad, but not like this - never like this.” I think with their level of dedication, they’ll find a way to make this work.

I also truly believe people want their local news because it directly affects them. However, If there were solid evidence that people wanted national and international news (and it came from someone more seasoned than an intern), I think they would dedicate their staff to that. The Trib would probably play that up and still provide local coverage.

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Jamie

Wow, you really are young and naive, aren’t you? Someone sent me the link to your blog, and I almost had to laugh, it was so ridiculous. I’m truly amazed that in one of your other posts, you can tell reporters to stop whining and do something about their situation. What, praytell, young lady, would you like them to do? Let’s say you were at the Trib for 10 years and had a family to support; what would you do if you were laid off? (By the way, it’s laid off, not layed off. If you can read this, thank a copy editor.)

John’s point about the Tallahassee sports reporter’s departure was an excellent one — bring him to Tampa intsead of laying him off. Scott (said reporter) is a great, great guy; he is hard-working, dedicated and willing to pitch in where needed at a moment’s notice. He went up to Tally at the TRIBUNE’s urging, and has lost his job as a result. They could definitely stand to clean house a little bit, but he shouldn’t have been one of the ones to go. The news rocked the sports department to the core.

As someone who was at the Tribune for nearly nine years and took a brief departure from the industry, I’m horrified at what’s happening there and throughout the world of newspapers. It’s certainly not what it used to be; I agree papers will have to evolve with the times, but it’s unfortunate that they have to do so at the cost of some incredible talent.

Funny, I think we were all so eager and optimistic when we started; I guess you’re too young and inexperienced to have become jaded yet. You’re certainly welcome to express your opinion on your blog — after all, as journalists we battle for free speech — but I don’t think you realize what’s ahead of you. I remember the days of being so idealistic.

Unfortunately, I would say that if most of the Trib staff (or any other newspaper’s staff, for that matter) reads some of your posts, you will make some serious enemies. That’s something you don’t want to do in this business; it’s WAY too small, and with the climate as it is now, you don’t want people against you. Give that some serious thought.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Chris O'Brien

Great post. What a sad day, but Janet’s direction is the right one.

But this is a newsroom reorganization, not a new business model. They’re still just going to sell ads online, right?

Her comparison to the music industry is on target. But they’re doing more to experiment with new revenue streams than newspapers.

Hope the publisher will be just as bold on the business side as Janet is on the news side.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Jessica DaSilva

@Jamie I was just approached by a reporter about that same issue. I’m afraid my words were misinterpreted. I’ve since written an update to clarify what I meant: http://www.jessicadasilva.com/2008/07/01/grabbing-fate-by-the-horns/

Jul 3rd, 2008
Kurt Loft

Jessica
I enjoyed your piece on the Tribune, but having just resigned from the company after 27 years, your comments about PricewaterhouseCoopers are a bit naive. I left to join PwC not because I was unwilling to stay and “fight for journalism,” but because Media General offers no hope for any of its employees, and certainly makes no effort to keep those with institutional knowledge. My extensive local coverage of the arts, in fact, was irrelevant to the cause of “hyperlocal.” The Tribune is full of talented, compassionate people, but the owners of the paper are bean counters who know nothing about running a news organization, much less how to plan for fluxes in the economy. I fought for 27 years at the Tribune. Now, it’s time to start caring about my own life - and my future.
Thank you.
Kurt Loft
fomer Tampa Tribune reporter and critic

Jul 3rd, 2008
skipper

Nice post, good work and good for you for being honest and open, that’s what reporting is all about.

Jul 3rd, 2008
John

Well, gee, the boss commented on your “words of support.” Good for you (note the sarcasm).

By the way, what words of support do you have for your colleagues who now have to go find other employment?

“Young and naive” _ um, no. “Clueless” might be a better word.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Jamie

Yes, I’ve heard about being “approached,” as you put it. Like I said, this industry is small and word travels VERY fast.

I don’t blame her for going off on you. Good for her that she had the sense to do so. You better hope that the damage isn’t already done and you don’t make a lot of enemies from that post.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Wenalway

Not much of a clarification, especially when you cheer for the “Just pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” woodenheads. Years from now, textbooks will be written about the cluelessness of today’s newspaper management.

Also, I tend to wonder how employment law would look upon the dismissal of someone who might have agreed to relocate out of the coverage area, but then was dismissed for being out of the coverage area.

Jul 3rd, 2008
J

Good for you for posting this. I disagree wholeheartedly with ABE who said he would fire you. Obviously, he’s as old-school as Abe Lincoln. As a journalist that was laid off last August after 13 years of service to a great newspaper, I believe that good journalists take chances, show initiative and are innovative. You’ve done all of this with your blog posting.

I still believe in journalism, because it’s a passion and a lifestyle of mine, but I shudder to think about all the friends I’ve left behind and what could happen to them in the future. I chose journalism over medical school and I would do it again if I had the choice to make one more time.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Jamie

Hey Kurt,

It’s Jamie, your former CCI expert.

Good to see you’ve moved and are doing well. Your words were dead on and so appropriate. I know there are a lot of us who feel the same, whether from the Trib or other papers; it’s so widespread.

For all of you current and former Tribbers out there, good luck. I think what’s happening there is so sad. I fear for the future of that paper, especially with some of the cuts they’re making.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Craig

One thing that hasn’t been said, but should be.

In Tampa — and Miami, and Jacksonville, and all across the state — Florida State coverage IS local. Same with Florida and, to a growing extent, South and Central Florida.

Yeah, they could have brought Scott back to Tampa, and should have if they were going to close up in Tallahassee. But the point is, they shouldn’t be closing up in Tallahassee.

Jul 3rd, 2008
John

“Nice to get insider stuff. Sad that it comes from an intern who one would think is the future of journalism who can’t even spell laid off.”

That’s OK. If she stays in this business for a couple years, she’ll learn how to spell that soon enough.

Jessica, I really do admire your enthusiasm, but your post comes off extremely naive. I say this not as some old timer who’s yearning for the good ol’ days. I’m 29 and spent 6 years full time and 10 years total in newspapers, and believe me when I tell you that I’ve heard this same song and dance often enough, at my paper and at other papers. Many of the veterans who are apprehensive about these changes are so not because they fear change, but because they have been through this way too many times — a round of layoffs, accompanied by a talk about how the paper needs to change, some sort of plan for change, and a motivational speech about how we will turn the paper around. A year later, they get more job cuts and more resource cuts that undermine the very changes the new plan was supposed to implement. It doesn’t take many of those to realize that these “changes” aren’t about saving the paper but about squeezing a few more pennies out of the current, defunct business model.

“Drastically eliminating the staff has nothing to do with improving local coverage.”
Umm … they may not be presented together as part of the same plan, but staffing level has everything to do with the quality of coverage. It’s a simple concept: More reporters = more coverage; fewer reporters = less coverage.

“And maybe these ideas have been tried before, but were the times as desperate?”
So are you saying that if these ideas didn’t work in better times, when papers had more staff and resources and greater room of error, they have a better chance of working in a time when papers have less of those things?

As for the axing of the sports reporter in Tallahassee being purely geographic, what does it say about management when it decides who to cut purely by drawing a line on a map rather than take into account quality of work? Add in the story above about why that reporter moved to Tallahassee, and I don’t know how you can view the people who axed this reporter as heroes.

Like I said, I admire your enthusiasm. But part of what makes a great journalist is having a good BS detector. I think you need to work on developing yours.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Hilary Lehman

I understand that there’s fear about the future of journalism, and that’s normal. I’m scared. Everyone in journalism is scared.

But I have a feeling there’s a reason Jessica didn’t name any specific “whiners” — because this post isn’t directed at anyone specific, unlike some of these comments.

Funny — I think it’s far more cringe-worthy to criticize someone based on her age or her spelling and not sign your name to it.

Maybe criticizing the complaints is “naive,” but I call not posting a comment with your full name “cowardice.”

Jul 3rd, 2008
John Proffitt

Thanks for the insider’s view. And ignore all the naysayers and spelling-correctors. There’s always a lot of anger that surfaces when change happens, and people lash out at everyone and everything. The fact that you’re “just an intern” makes the old farts just feel all the more empowered to kick you around. Don’t take it personally.

It is indeed a terrible thing when people lose their jobs. It’s also a terrible thing to be the person terminating all those hopes and dreams. But sometimes it just has to happen.

Keep writing, keep learning, but don’t hook up your own dreams to any one industry or business model.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Travis

Abe,

If you were my boss, I’d quit.

Jessica,

I don’t agree with all of your editor’s sentiments, but I think your chronicle of this moment is something that really exposes to people outside the business what true journalists are wrestling with these days, and I’m glad you wrote about it, and in such an honest way. Thanks.

TTFN
Travis

Jul 3rd, 2008
John

Hilary, what’s cringe-worthy to me is someone saying “You go, girl” to a person who just laid (correct spelling) off good reporters, some of whom (the FSU beat writer in Tallahassee) made decisions to be a part of the newspaper which has now told them to hit the road.

The newspaper business isn’t in trouble because of the “old fart” reporters who are getting axed. It’s because of the idiots in management, like “you go, girl” Janet Coats.

My guess is, as Janet Coats was bravely hobbling (note sarcasm) to the elevator on her crutches, a lot of people wanted to kick them out from under her. Because that’s what she did to a lot of good people.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Ken

All of this hyperlocal stuff is very suspect. I recently unsubscribed from the AJC because of their news selection policy that says if the word Atlanta isn’t in an article it isn’t worth running. I was so sick of reading one, two, three articles a day about Coca Cola or Delta airlines and new buildings in Atlanta and obits about Atlanta socialites while significant news stories from around the world are ignored or confined to one paragraph that I gave up. For now, I read the Christian Science Monitor, the Guardian Weekly, USA Today, etc. and feel much better informed. If newspapers die, and a I hope they don’t, it is because they self-destructed by navel-gazing rather than helping readers to be better informed voters and world citizens.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Concerned citizen

I hope she’s a better mother than journalist.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Charlie

I don’t agree with you about anything, but that’s beside the point. Don’t you feel dirty from sucking up to the boss in public? Good God, it’s repulsive.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Lyndsey

This post (and its accompanying comments) seems to sum up the fundamental problems of the drastic changes affecting media. On one hand, idealistic students like Jessie argue that major overhauls are for the best, and she makes a very good point. As Coats said, newspapers will die if something isn’t done soon.

On the other hand, though, good people with families are losing their jobs. It’s understandable for them to feel upset when someone with little real-world experience and no family to support — someone like Jessie — waxes poetic about the “love and passion” journalism demands. The multiple comments criticizing Jessie’s spelling seem to serve as a guise for this anger.

The one thing everyone can agree on is that watching the slow demise of journalism is painful. Maybe it’s time to find more common ground rather than tearing into the next generation of journalists. Young or old, nobody wants to see news reporting die out.

Jul 3rd, 2008
RAMON LOPEZ

Travis should be removed JUST for using TTFN to finish his posting.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Andrew Tan

Reading all all these comments trying to dismiss DaSilva as naive I can’t help but feel a bit disturbed.
To try to dismiss anyone, especially a journalist, as naive is ridiculous. The entire profession is based on the notion that there is a “Truth” out there that journalists can always get closer to.
While such a thing seems like such a small light in such a great distance, the faith that that distance can be conquered and that light can be brightened is what keeps journalism going. To try to dismiss someone as too naive to be jaded is the antithesis of the purpose of this profession.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Mindy McAdams

What Hilary said:

I have a feeling there’s a reason Jessica didn’t name any specific “whiners” — because this post isn’t directed at anyone specific, unlike some of these comments.

Funny — I think it’s far more cringe-worthy to criticize someone based on her age or her spelling and not sign your name to it.

Having been a copy editor for 11 years, I certainly do cringe when I see “layed.” But I also find it amusing how quickly — and how viciously — a bunch of old hacks will leap on an intern for ONE error committed in an otherwise clean 1,000-word piece. I mean, come on, there is no editor. And since “layed” is not even a word, obviously Jessie didn’t spell-check this. What motivates such people? Jealousy? Stupidity? Maybe both.

Like Hilary, I also find it noteworthy that the more brutal attacks are — as usual — from people too spineless to use their real names. It’s one thing to commit whistle-blowing under the cover of anonymity, and quite another to insult people and denigrate them without taking responsibility.

This is the very behavior that so many journalists decry in readers’ comments on journalistic Web sites.

I guess some journalists don’t feel any qualms about flinging themselves onto their bellies to reach the same low level.

Anyway, Jessie is a student from our j-school at UF, and I admire her post (even though I wish she had not written “layed”).

Jul 3rd, 2008
HANGING IN THERE

When I hear “hyperlocal,” I want to cry. Sure, there are lots of great local stories out there, and there are some fascinating people with interesting lives, but “hyperlocal” invariably turns into retyped press releases from local nonprofits that some “community” reporter turns into a bylined story, usually full of spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes, with names whose spellings change in every graf and people who are just “so excited” to be getting the word out about teenage nosepicking or whatever the cause is this week.

Local news is stuff that’s going on, like politicians who sell votes, police officers who are doing their jobs well (or not), developers buying up governmental bodies or tearing up wetlands, local celebrities getting popped for DUI or dope, local goofballs declaiming on the “bad choices” they’ve made in their lives, and on and on.

There’s a hunger out there for news in the community, and if we’d just stop recooking press releases and got out there and talked to people, we’d get some great stories that people would read.

I worked at a paper several years ago that was being crushed between two large dailies (both of which announced big cutbacks recently). Our editor made the same announcement: we weren’t competing with those other papers; it was just us and our adoring readers. Well, we missed some big stories, blew off another story about a theater group going bust (because the head honcho of the organization was a friend of the publisher and he didn’t want to embarrass her) and basically became a press release service for the cops. The paper still exists, barely, but it’s a shell of its old self.

I love newspapers, even the bad ones and the ones I disagree with, and I will miss them when they’re on the Web but will still read them. Hopefully, there will be a place for me in the future of the news business, but if not, I guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Jul 3rd, 2008
anon

So much of this doesn’t add up.

According to Janet, the new direction is “hyperlocal,” and yet 9 of the 10 layoffs this week were bureau reporters whose primary beats focused on intensely local coverage of Tampa area neighborhoods and their residents.

According to Janet, the new paradigm is Web-first, print-second, and yet instead of eliminating staff members whose duties are limited exclusively to a shrinking print product (e.g., page designers, copy editors), all 10 of the 10 layoffs were reporters whose stories weren’t platform-specific.

According to Janet, the whole point of these layoffs is to save money — and she has said she was given a specific dollar amount to target — and yet 6 of the 10 layoffs were young, entry-level reporters who earn meager salaries, while the top-heavy newsroom’s bevy of do-nothing editors continue to collect their massive paychecks.

I remain suspicious.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Jessica DaSilva

@Elaine - I do apologize for everyone I offended because that was not my intent. I’ve updated my last entry to explain that I was not attacking any one person, but a general sentiment of fear and upset paired with a lack of action everywhere. I’m not talking about any specific reporters at any specific newspapers anywhere. That is not the case and those who know me know I would NEVER do that.

And I *do* know how it feels to not be able to afford anything. As I said in my explanation, I am the oldest of four kids. I know what it is to hurt financially. I might not have a family to provide for, but I’ve watched my parents struggle to provide for us my entire life.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Les Bowen

Well, obviously, Jessica knows that all of this silly, “hyperlocal” bullshit is the only way to save the paper, because, you know, it’s CHANGE, and all these, like, old guys, like, just don’t get it.
Never fear, Jess. If the news biz goes under somehow, despite the implementation of all these wonderful, fearless, innovative ideas, you’ll be just fine, wherever you land. You have a talent for asskissing and sucking up that just can’t be taught; you’re obviously a natural — the rookie sycophant of the year.

Jul 3rd, 2008
John Zhu

“Like Hilary, I also find it noteworthy that the more brutal attacks are — as usual — from people too spineless to use their real names. It’s one thing to commit whistle-blowing under the cover of anonymity, and quite another to insult people and denigrate them without taking responsibility.”

Yeah, it’s about as spineless as, oh I don’t know, dismissing people’s criticism because they didn’t use their full name on a blog comment (because, you know, it’s so customary for everyone to use their full names in cyberspace), especially when the blog has no apparent full-name policy. There are many legitimate points of criticism here, and dismissing the content of the comments because of the lack of a full name attached to them is asinine. And it’s funny that you only took issue with people criticizing Jessica’s entry without full names, but not people praising her without full names.

NOTE: I posted a couple comments previously with only my first name, but my full name is attached to this comment in the hope that the discussion will actually focus on the substance of my post rather than which part of my name I used.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Michael

I’m an editor at a medium-sized paper and I’m sending your name around to everyone I know in the business to make sure that you are never hired anywhere.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Ricardo

Did’t the Trib already promise “hyperlocal” about a year or so ago when they ditched their broadsheet regional editions in favor of tabs and “new and improved” local Web sites for plces like South Tampa, Brandon, etc?

I seem to recall “hyperlocal” coming up not that long ago, and I’d like to hear everyone’s take on what that’s done for the company to date.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Craig

Said Michael: I’m an editor at a medium-sized paper and I’m sending your name around to everyone I know in the business to make sure that you are never hired anywhere.

Michael: I’m an editor at a gigantic website and before that was in the print business for 20 years up to the largest metros, and believe me, if you had a full name, I would also send it around to everybody I knew to tell them not to hire the idiot who is willing to write off the career of a young woman who truly has a passion for a trouble profession — something we really need right now — because of something she wrote in a single blog entry when she was just starting out.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Isbitts

Nice to read the account of Janet Coats’ attempt to rally the troops. But it’s really a bunch of crap. She should have just slammed down $500 on a table and said, “We’re still going to turn out killer fuck’n stories for the 200,000+ who buy this paper every day and the thousands more who read online. And here’s $500 for the next person who cranks out a buzz-making enterprise story. Remember everyone. None of our audience gives a crap about the state of the news business. They just want to be informed, entertained and wowed by their local newspaper.”

Back to reality, the readers are entitled to expect a consistent quality product, which is nearly impossible without staff. Without that quality, more and more will dump the paper.

When sales drop at McDonald’s and other established brands, they don’t change the menu, they add new wrinkles or boost advertising. Poor performing stores will shut down, but the model stays.

ONLY in journalism would management be so egomaniacal to believe that they would give away the product free on the Internet and sales, which drive ad rates, would not suffer.

I broke my ass in the Trib newsroom for a handful of years, and had to fight off management egos less interested in great work and dedicated staff than diversity, back-scratching and making sure reporters have no defined career path.

Remember Ms intern, great companies take cater to their customers and their employees.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Rex

I don’t know Janet, but it’s surprising the Tribune and its staff aren’t already on the same page about this. Many newspapers had this discussion years ago and are well on the way to a multi-media future.

And, yes, if your post was based upon an internal newsroom meeting, you should be fired.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Jamie

As previously mentioned, I do strongly disagree with what Jessica said. And unfortunately, she probably WILL make a lot of enemies with her post. The aforementioned Michael is one example.

But as a friend said to me a bit ago, she’s an intern. Most of us were interns at some point before getting our first real job, and as you know, that’s the time you’re supposed to make your biggest mistakes. I sure as hell made my share. It doesn’t excuse her, but I’m guessing we were all ready to set the journalistic world on fire when we were her age.

The decision to write this particular post may not have been the best, especially because it’s rubbing a heavy dose of salt in a wound that’s very, very raw. But I do agree with Craig that this shouldn’t be used to destroy her career.

Jessica, I think you may have alienated a lot of people in the industry with what you wrote, even with your attempts to correct it. Intern or not, you need to realize that your words have impact and power. That should have been one of the first you learned at UF’s J-school (of which I’m a proud graduate). As I said, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but in an industry that’s struggling as it is, you really need to weigh what you say and how you say it. I think this has been a hard lesson, but a valuable one. I hope you learn from it.

Jul 3rd, 2008
chris

What’s with the “rolling chair” in the lede? I was expecting that strange detail to pay off in some way… like Janet rolls over and gets in some cranky old dinosaur’s face… or a sycophantic web editor (note: I don’t anyone who works at this paper) rolls Janet back to her office at the end of the speech. Something like that.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Rob

I don’t know which part of this little blog item made me most feel like projectile vomiting, the part where the writer is a fawning sycophant or the part where she wrote, “You go girl!” — the classic line that some woman utter when serving as a female friend’s stupidity enabler. Just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll puke on general principle.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Bob Schadenfreude

I’m writing down all of your names and sending them to every editor I know and telling them not to hire any of you. Why? Because you’re spending your time commenting on this blog and not writing hyper-local stories to save your dying newspapers. Now get back to work.

Jul 3rd, 2008
John

Drama, navel-gazing and shooting the messenger. The pillars of journalism

Jul 3rd, 2008
Depressed

Sad to see so many people anxious to attack over simple spelling mistakes and the writers naivete - rather than discussing the issues. It all sounds more like denial trying to masquerade as experience.

Part of newspaper’s problem is a fetish with perfectionism. Perfectionism as our only standard guarantees failure and kills innovation. It misses the forest for the trees.

Quality and high standards are tools and we need to value them. But all of our perfectly worded headlines are not going to save newspapers. We also need to value change and creative thinking and a willingness to learn, and a willingness to try things no one has ever tried at a newspaper before. Like blogging about a painful staff meeting.

Wow - Happy Fourth.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Alan Smithee

“Amen!”

“You go, girl!”

I shudder and weep for you, as I would anyone else to possess even inward reactions of such sentiment at a meeting called because of a downsizing that has already cost 10 people their positions, throwing their lives and those connected them into chaos and economic peril at a time where career options in any field — let alone media — are growing scarcer by the day.

Obviously, you’ve never lost your job.

You’ve never sat in a conference room where you’d received a positive performance evaluation two weeks earlier — the only kind of evaluation you’ve ever had in your career, mind you — and been told the services of you and several of your co-workers were no longer required because of the “changing financial conditions.”

You’ve never had to hear that because of your salary — which is by no American standard “high” — you will be replaced by intern and entry-level people whose main attribute is that they will work cheap.

And you’ve never been seated across the table from your boss and told, “Corporate says I’m not supposed to give advice, but as your friend, I’m telling you that you should take this buyout.”

Thankfully, that you possessed enough restraint to avoid bellowing those afore-mentioned four words of exclamations in the meeting. Yet by writing them here, you’ve nullified the outward cordiality you displayed yesterday.

May you learn a lesson here and you never again write anything as devoid of tact and class as your blog post today. And may you never have to experience what I and so many others have endured from a line of work that we love dearly, but clearly does not love us back.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Jessica DaSilva

@Alan - I didn’t want to praise Janet for downsizing the staff, but I understand that that was out of her control.

What I wanted to praise was her willingness to try and change a new model for a depleting newsroom. I don’t like the idea of firing people, but the reality is that this news organization can’t afford the staff it has.

I wish the Tribune would keep everyone here and hire more people to increase coverage and depth, but that’s not the situation it’s in.

So to summarize, I’m praising the attempt at change, NOT the layoffs. I never have and never will praise layoffs.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Alley

Jessica,

I’m curious, do you do any actual work or do you just blog all day long, patting yourself on the back? If so, congratulations you really do have a future in this business.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Ryan Sholin

Jessica, you rock. The commenters freaking out are Romenesko readers who love to wring their hands and tear their shirts while the rest of the world flies by their newsroom, which hasn’t changed much since 1974.

But I love ‘em all.

Jul 3rd, 2008
susan

This girl is obviously trying to get hired at the Trib. Interns should stick to doing good work - and stay away from blogging.

Jul 3rd, 2008
John Zhu

“We also need to value change and creative thinking and a willingness to learn, and a willingness to try things no one has ever tried at a newspaper before. Like blogging about a painful staff meeting.”

DEPRESSED, I don’t think the negative reaction is to the fact that she blogged about the painful meeting, but about the hero worship expressed for the person who laid off 10 people. They are taking issue with the content, not with the mechanism.

“… but the reality is that this news organization can’t afford the staff it has.”

I’ve lost count of how many memos and news stories about layoffs in which I’ve seen similar sentiments expressed, all while those papers were still pulling in profit margins that would have most other businesses salivating. I don’t know a lick about Tampa’s financial situation, but as a journalist, my first instinct would be to actually investigate this claim as opposed to taking it at face value, especially when it came from the person handing out the pink slips. If you were writing a story about a similar development in another industry, would you not do the same?

Jessica, I don’t doubt that you weren’t commending Janet Coates for laying off people, but really, how did you think people would react to your hero worship of someone who just laid off 10 people, especially so soon after the fact? As a couple others have said, this is a good lesson about the power of words, and it’s also a good lesson about timing and context.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Syd

When is everyone going to talk about this having nothing to do with news? It’s business. The media industry is just like any other business.
Housing market crashes + low car sales + ad revenues going down + angry share holders = death of newspapers

Now when is someone going to figure out how to make money on the Internet?

Jul 3rd, 2008
John Reinan

@Syd: Someone already has — the porn industry.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Erik Wemple

OK, so the young blogger may be guilty of a touch of naivete–not even a misdemeanor offense in my book. I really like what Mindy McAdams writes about all of this: I’d really like to see all of these apparently old hacks write a blog post half as good as what Jessica did here. Much easier, I guess, just to throw stones in the comments section under the protection of anonymity. The telling testament to Jessica’s new-media skills are the comments above, most of which were terribly interesting and illuminating–until, that is, some assholes decided to go all ad feminam on her. When we get rich comments threads like this on our site–not often enough–I know we’ve done something right. Anyhow, the ghoulish part of all of this is the moron who’s trying to get others blackballed for future hires. Don’t you get it? If we don’t figure this thing out, there’ll be no positions to prevent your enemies from occupying!

Jul 3rd, 2008
tommyduncn

Sure are a lot of complaints about both the “old” way of doing things and the “new attitude” expressed here.

Not a whole lot of suggestions for moving forward.

Jul 3rd, 2008
George

Welcome to the real world. Newspapers are a business. When they lose money, people lose their jobs. No different from GM or any other company.

Unlike radio and TV that live by their ratings, editors never cared if what they wrote was relevant to their readers.,,,they were off on some sacred quest for writing awards handed out by their peers.

News folks never wanted to work with the business side of the industry and paid only lip service to embracing the Internet and other new technologies…so now the chickens come home to roost.

Jul 3rd, 2008
leslie

wields, not WEILDS

Jul 3rd, 2008
Pat Thornton

Jessica,

Don’t worry about all the people threatening to black ball you from the industry.

They fall under two categories: People who won’t have jobs shortly, and thus will have no impact on your future employment. Or they are the kinds of people you don’t want to work for anyway. Do you really want to work in 1974 newsroom?

Of course not. Heck, I’d love to be banned from riding the Titanic too.

My blog has ruffled way more feathers than yours has (so far?). And it leads to job offers all the time. The people worth working for love that you blog. They love that you’re thinking about what’s next.

And the people who tell you not to blog are the kinds of people who are dragging this industry back. Keep your head up high. You’ll be a star.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Billy Bob

Yeah, it takes real courage to agree with the boss! Especially in times like these when people are losing their jobs!

You folks need to get real. Blatant brown-nosers get ahead at the expense of those who actually do their jobs. Why anyone would want to praise this Jessica person baffles me. Would you actually want this person working at the desk next to yours, shamelessly currying favor with the editor while you can’t do that because you couldn’t look at yourself in the mirror if you did?

Jul 3rd, 2008
gottacook

Come on, the real issue here isn’t office politics.

I’m a copyeditor for a weekly journal published by a 150-year-old nonprofit. That is, job security is good and pay is mediocre at best. Although I don’t work on the news side, I feel as if I’ve got as much at stake as everyone writing here, particularly after attending American Copy Editors Society meetings in ‘01 and ‘02 (just before the newspaper business started going south, near as I can tell).

I can already anticipate a time when no facts are trusted on their face, when all sources but a very select few are considered shaky. I sincerely hope that newspapers are among the trusted sources; even if corrections have to be run sometimes, there will continue to be (I hope) people with the journalistic impulse who recognize, among other things, the need for an informed electorate. However, there could be very few surviving papers, and perhaps they would be overtly partisan as in the old days - well, so much for the informed electorate. I wonder whether one of the present-day political news sites will reach such a high status, but if so, the journalists there will likely not enjoy the job security of a unionized newspaper employee of 1990.

Energy conservation is going to put a stop to traditional newspaper production sooner or later, irrespective of all the other factors affecting papers today. Huge amounts of energy are required to make newsprint, transport it, print the paper, transport it again, and pick it up for recycling. (Plus, at my age I have little energy to sort through the day’s Washington Post and clip what I want, so they pile up…)

Jul 3rd, 2008
SpaceyG

Jessica hon, I’d hire you in a flash… if I was hiring that is! Launching a new media company is hard work, lemme tell you. When I’m ready to take over Florida though, I’ll be sure to look you up first. You go girl. Keep blogging. Don’t listen to the old poo-bahs, except when they’re making sense of course. As I always say, “Blog, blog, blog to the top.” If you’re pissing-off some people along the way, you’ll be just fine.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Paige

Well at least Pat Thornton found a way to promote his/her blog. I think people who believe blogs are the best source of news are who’s dragging the industry back. Blogs are where our frequently ill-informed public get information like Obama is a Muslim (or the Anti-Christ) and other ridiculous info they begin to take as fact. Blogs are a great source of entertainment and communication, but if blogs become the primary source of news and information for our society, it will be a frightening place.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Pat Thornton

@Paige,

You have a very backwards view of blogs. Blogging is just a publishing platform. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Some reporting blogs that I recommend checking out:

Pharmalot, Eric Berger the SciGuy and Kent Fischer’s blog on the Dallas Independent School District.

In fact, that’s what my day job at BeatBlogging.Org is all about. We’re looking to find beat reporters pushing the practice of journalism using social networking tools.

Blogging is just a platform. It can be anything. I don’t judge all print products by trashy super market tabloids.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

I hope that Mindy McAdams takes note that I am posting under my real name. And I dearly hope that McAdams and others like her at Media General and the Tampa Tribune are soon on a street corner with signs reading “Will Manage (Poorly) For Food.”
To the “lovely and talented” Jessica DaSilva:
When I was “intern age” I certainly believed I knew everything about journalism and newspapers. Thank God I didn’t have a blog on which to post. Some newsroom veteran would have killed me with a pica pole (Google to find out what that is).
Your enthusiastic blog should have taught you a few lessons:
1. Unlike your private diary/thoughts, what you blog or post on Al Gore’s invention is there for the world to see and read.
2. Writing on blogs need to be filtered. Think before you write. Read before you post. If you haven’t rewritten most of your post before it’s posted, you’re headed for trouble.
3. That’s what editors do. They just dont’ change “layed” to “laid.” They ask questsions like, “Is this what you mean to say?” “This is not clear; can you tell me what you’re trying to say?” “Are you sure this is what you were aiming for?”
I’m a 36-year veteran of newspapers who recently left the business. It is dying if not already dead. Your editing hero is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. And “hyper local” translates to “hyper cheap.” The Tampa Tribuine’s investigative group will wind up getting one good-sized story a year and a lot of nickel and dime gotcha stories that will do more harm than good.
One last interesting thing about the Internet. You find all sorts of things everywhere. You quoted your Editor Hero: “We can see a better future for journalism right across the bridge on the other side, but the bridge is on fire, and if we just stand here, we are going to burn up with it.”
A McClatchy veep in charge of news coverage used the same analogy and wording on his web site. Turns out your hero is a plagarist. Too bad she doesn’t understand about attributing the source of her pithy analogy.

Jul 3rd, 2008
sam

“Drama, navel-gazing and shooting the messenger. The pillars of journalism.”

Well, I think we all can agree that Jessica stepped out of the role of simply being a modest “messenger” when she wrote the words, “You go girl!,” then went on to heap praise on a grim situation and its reaper.

The backlash here to Jessica’s piece by working journalists is the result of what we’re all seeing play out in our newsrooms nationwide. Companies, like the Trib, are cutting experienced reporters, and gambling on cheaper hires like Jessica to carry the torch and (cross our fingers!) come up with the next grand idea that’s going to save the industry. At the same time, the corporate executives still command millions in salaries and bonuses, and those benefits somehow rise every year, even with industry declines.

Now, the thinking behind the cheaper is better philosophy is seriously deranged and flawed. We all know the public craves knowledge, told by writers who can sort through the PR and the garbage and get to the truth, and explain it simply. But imagine if someone were to tell young Jessica to come up with a story based on hard-nosed document and spreadsheet work, and through her long and trusted connections to sources. Probably wouldn’t happen. Those stories about voter signups at Tampa’s Pearl Jam concert, or about recycling junk mail in Tampa (yes, these were recent stories written by Jessica) aren’t the kind of in-depth local news reports many readers crave. But the higher ups are pledging to give it to them anyway.

But who is left to teach the young’uns how to dig in and find the good stories? Well, they’re the people who are being “layed off” and replaced by people, like Jessica, who believe they’re ready to be columnists, or even star bloggers. Management is all too eager to accept this. I mean, hey, they appreciate her words of support. She’ll probably be repaid in kind with an entry level reporting job somewhere that has the demands of three or four former skilled and experienced reporters. For years, she will be told constantly she’s not doing enough. Years later, she’ll wonder, first to herself, then out loud, why some young intern just doesn’t understand what she has to go through. She might even be laid off, replaced by workers in India and Mexico.

Meanwhile, the democracy suffers. Circulation declines, experienced reporters are “layed off,” the paper shrinks, and, well… the cycle continues. We march toward a world that is void of useful knowledge. We’re already giving the public more blogs and videos, which has been a proven failure. Revenues and circulation continue the slide. Blogs and online videos are worth fighting for? Really?

The industry unfortunately decided long ago that twentysomethings aren’t the answer to saving the business. The industry would have survived had it buckled down by investing in a more robust products. It should have leveraged the use of older, smarter, wiser people to tell better stories. Give more and smarter content. Not less.

Meanwhile, there is no amount of cheerleading at the local journalism school for a Janet Coats, or any amount of ranting by professors against the old guys somehow living in 1974, that will save the papers, or make the major dailies’ websites powerful journalistic forces. The writing is on the wall.

Take a look around the halls at school, Jessica. Most of your profs who are doing all that ranting at your local J-school haven’t ever worked in a 21st century newsroom or even stepped into one in decades other than to lead a class of aspiring journalists on a field trip to gawk at the goofy-looking old reporters in their cubicles. Maybe they should actually experience what is happening in newsrooms, rather than falsely filling the heads of the kids, saying that everything is going to be okay, as long as you get an internship, cheer for the boss, and hope to get rid of the old guys in order to open up new job opportunities.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Paige

I don’t deny blogging has its uses. But for the regular reader, how would they know your aforementioned blogs are any better sources of news than any other blog. Fact is, we know what we get with supermarket tabloids. Anyone with a computer and an opinion can start a blog, which is why I think it isn’t the best source for news and information. Maybe that will change, but as they say, well, everyone has opinions. As long as there are no guidelines or standards put in place and anyone regardless of training or experience can weigh in on any issue, blogs are dangerous places for people looking for legitimate news sources.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Damon Kiesow

>>I think people who believe blogs are the best source of news are who’s dragging the industry back.

Ironic that someone placing the 75th comment of the day on this BLOG would equate technology with content and dismiss both.

“Blog” as a term is meaningless. It is simply a piece of software. Giving it any moral authority, negative or positive, is also meaningless.

The only value a blog has over printed paper is the fact that this is now the 76th comment of the day - and the conversation has taken on more value and importance than the original post itself.

It still takes a journalist (of whatever skill or professionalism) to create original content - but it is the act of conversation and community that digital media allows that will help ’save journalism.’

We can rage against the machine all we want here, but unless we are also on our paper’s Web site engaging readers like we are engaging each other here today - we are ALL going to be out of work.

cheers

Jul 3rd, 2008
Garey G. Ris

Jessica:

Before the Tampa Tribune makes a big mistake, Janet Coats should read this WSJ blog from early June.

http://blogs.wsj.com/buzzwatch/2008/06/04/buzz-links-surf-with-caution-in-webs-most-dangerous-domains/?mod=googlenews_wsj

There’s a link to a story about the Washington Post’s hyperlocal LoudounExtra.com, which debuted last July. The site has bombed so far.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Pat Thornton

@Paige,

The three blogs I cited all belong to metro newspapers. Pharmalot is run by The Star-Leger, SciGuy is run by the Houston Chronicle and Kent Fischer’s blog is run by the Dallas Morning News.

If people trust those newspapers for quality news, then they can trust those beat blogs. Those blogs all feature quality, original reporting.

I strongly urge you to go over to BeatBlogging.Org and see what we have written about beat reporters taking their beat reporting to the next level online. I think you’ll find that there are a lot of really good, news-oriented blogs out there.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Howard Owens

Jessica, good job. This was an important post.

Part of the proof that it is an important post are all of the naive journalists who have come on here and called you naive, who have exposed their own foolish ignorance of what is really going on, who have flaunted red herring arguments and displayed reasoning skills that belie their claims to professionalism.

Janet’s ideas are certainly nothing new to those of us who have been doing online newspapers for a while, but they are right on track. The old guard doesn’t like the directions that journalism must go to survive, but that’s there problem.

Keep your enthusiasm and your passion. We need more of that these days.

Please sign up for wiredjournalists.com — we would love to have you in our group.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Chip Oglesby

Jessica, keep up the great work, don’t let the naysayers get you down. Some journalist want to beat innovation into the ground and never let it see the light of day.

In this day and age we can’t afford to do that anymore. I’m an online producer at a daily newspaper and I always try to encourage my colleagues to embrace the web, and it’s an uphill battle and it will continue for a long time.

Keep your head held high and keep marching forward and take everyone kicking and screaming with you. Don’t give up on innovation and don’t be afraid to fail, you’ll be so glad you did it!

Jul 3rd, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

Mr. Owens:
Not sure if your comments are aimed at me. However, I want to make clear that while I might have been part of the “old guard” I embraced the possibilities of the Internet long before the executives at my former paper did. They, like many other executives, started yelling “fire” long after the house had burned down.
It’s not about the delivery method or the media platform. It’s about content. Getting ready of talented, productive, veteran reporters and editors is no way to grow a newspaper or web site.
The Tampa Tribune editor is a couple of years late saying saying that the web site is more important than the print product.

Jul 3rd, 2008
Mike Plugh

Jessica,

Great work. You’ve illustrated why the newspaper and many of the people working in the newsroom have made dinosaurs of themselves. Simply, “it’s the internet, stupid” to borrow a sentiment from James Carville. Craigslist did in the classified revenue and blogs did in the newsroom. The key contributions of your piece come in two parts.

1. The story
You did the work of the journalist in presenting the narrative as it unfolded, and you also added something of your own take. The critics of your take have the luxury of a framework by which to attack you, but without your personalization of the story there would be no angle to do so. With more experience, you’ll get better at framing your opinion (not that it isn’t already quite good here). The key point is…

2. The comments
…you provided a forum by which the news and your presentation of it can be digested, discussed, debated, and integrated into a larger network of ideas and claims. The blog is perfect for this, where the newspaper is slow to offer this kind of opportunity via the op-ed page. Those people who attack you in the comments section are dinosaurs, who are clinging to their old, petrified model of public communication. Things have shifted so quickly and completely that many in the profession have been virtually unable to shift along. They’re cognitively still operating as though the world hasn’t dramatically changed. The paradigm is still a 20th century mindset.

The bitter, public fight between old school journalists and bloggers is a foundational one. Many journalists have moved into the new realm and have adjusted their mentality accordingly. Those who have not, shake an ink-smudged fist in the air at the blogging community screaming, for example, that they have no professional standards or accountability. The problem is, neither do they. Unlike doctors, lawyers, or other professions journalists aren’t recognized by the public (and never have been) as a specialized talent. You can’t be accused of impersonating a journalist like you can a police officer, doctor, etc….

That’s exactly the argument these dinosaurs are making. Bloggers are impersonating journalists. You and I will have the last laugh. You’re article is so far superior to anything I’ve read in a newspaper in years, it’s almost laughable to read the remarks of the endangered species attacking your spelling. Keep on doing what you’re doing and you’ll find yourself an excellent niche somewhere in the new media environment and you’ll have a long prosperous career on top of it. Good luck.

Jul 4th, 2008
Mark Friesen

Just want to add my voice (and name) here to those supporting Jessica.

To those who disagree, hey, that’s fine. Let’s talk. But if you’re the kind of “journalist” who somehow thinks it’s honorable to slag someone anonymously, you are most definitely part of the problem. Please get out of the way. Thank you.

Jul 4th, 2008
Mallory Colliflower

I think all of us in the “next generation of journalists” would agree with you. Be it because of naivety or because we’ve freshly come out of UF’s j-school with a “brace yourselves, it’s a rough journalism world out there” attitude. Two-thumbs up for stirring up the conversation even further.

Jul 4th, 2008
Dennis Brack

The post by “CRAIG” is worth repeating, at least one senior editor at a large, pretty respected/successful, daily feels. Trashing a clearly passionate and committed young journalist serves absolutely no purpose. Disagree, agree, whatever. But do so with at least some hint of civility…

CRAIG
Said Michael: I’m an editor at a medium-sized paper and I’m sending your name around to everyone I know in the business to make sure that you are never hired anywhere.

Michael: I’m an editor at a gigantic website and before that was in the print business for 20 years up to the largest metros, and believe me, if you had a full name, I would also send it around to everybody I knew to tell them not to hire the idiot who is willing to write off the career of a young woman who truly has a passion for a trouble profession — something we really need right now — because of something she wrote in a single blog entry when she was just starting out.

Jul 4th, 2008
jon

Thank God I bailed and went to law school before it was too late.

Jul 4th, 2008
Nancy Imperiale

Another rah-rah from a rookie brainwashed into thinking a boss “gets it” and they’re being brave and innovative and all these other people are just resisting change and maybe they ought to just move on, right?

newsflash: bosses killed newspapers. follow them is like following the captain of the titanic. but you’re young, so where else do you have to go?

be strong, little journalist. we know you’ll fight on.

Jul 4th, 2008
Carrie

What a naked attempt to suck up to an executive editor. Congratulations; I’m sure Janet Coats will write you a fine letter, recommending you for a job you clearly don’t deserve.
Meanwhile, the people who have poured sweat, blood, and thousands of unpaid hours of overtime into this unforgiving industry can bask in your criticism of them for valuing their craft.
A more naive, self-righteous brat I have never encountered.

Jul 4th, 2008
Carrie

P.S. enough with the calls for “supporting Jessica.” For Christ’s sake, this is an intern who is pissing on people in a newsroom as they are being shown the door. And self-aggrandizing in the process, not to mention brown-nosing an executive editor at a vulnerable time. This will be the last time I ever read her blog, to be sure. I am truly nauseous.

Jul 4th, 2008
Steve

Jessica,

First let me say thanks. This was not only an interesting view into the workings of a newsroom, but the comments were quite “enlightening” as well.

It strikes me here as journalists are having a chance to “eat their own cooking.” After service in the Armed Forces for 20 years, and a few other jobs along the way, I have noticed how what “really happened” and what is reported are often quite different. Sometimes with serious consequences. Most often, it is because the reporter was not familiar with the actual organization/technology/operation on which they reported.

So we have reporters, who know how newsrooms operate, upset that someone new to the fold didn’t quite get it “right.”

Yup–been saying that for years.

The question is, will reporters learn THIS lesson, or just continue to rail on Jessica for misspelling one word, and being young?

Jul 4th, 2008
Vann

There’s a lot of hate in here. She’s an intern — and she’s already created more conversation than all of you “editors of mid-sized papers” have in your entire lousy careers. Get over yourselves.

Jul 4th, 2008
Grant Barrett

You go get ‘em, Jessica. Your optimism should be the default state in newsrooms, not cynicism and jaded outlooks. Don’t let them beat it out of you prematurely.

Email me if you ever want a job. I’ll do my best to see you hired.

Jul 4th, 2008
Major Highfield

Jessica, congrats on fueling the flames of the journalism world. I enjoyed the post, as well as “most” of the comments — with the exception of the ones suggesting you be fired, never hired, etc.

As several other comments mentioned, what concerns me is that there has been little discussed regarding a game plan for making money online. As we’re all finding out, journalism is more than a public service, it’s a business.

A newsroom’s best product — one that national players cannot compete with — is local coverage (or hyperlocal, if you enjoy throwing around the much cooler, news 2.0 buzzword). And newsrooms should do whatever they can to produce the best local content possible — even if it means restructuring.

It appears that most news companies have decided that better local news coverage, combined with new ways of selling online advertising is the best approach for surviving this “transition” period in the news industry.

Gannett (my employer) has implemented changes company-wide in its newsrooms, dubbed the “Local Information Center” approach. Gannett is also attempting to aggregate more of its local content into national products, resulting in more sales to national advertisers. And yes, there have been buyouts and other cuts along the way.

My point is that no matter what restructuring takes place, your primary product — local news — will continue to suffer if you do not have the funds to back it.

Needless to say, I would be interested in learning more about what advertising strategies the Tribune is planning.

Jul 4th, 2008
Les Bowen

Boy, there are a lot of deluded people here.
First, you’ll note that in both my posts, I’m using my whole, real name.
If you are the kind of simpleton who thinks that old=bad and new=good, just “because,” I don’t have an argument for you, mainly because I doubt you’re intelligent enough to comprehend one.
But let’s take a break from praising Jessica for her “courage” to examine some of the blithe assumptions she and her supporters continue to make.
First, where is the data that shows “hyperlocal” coverage is going to turn around circulation decline and bring back advertising? Or is it — as it seems to most of us who actually think, rather than just parroting the latest industry buzzwords — a silly exercise based on “we can’t afford to give ‘em anything else anymore, so let’s serve up this crap and see if we can get away with calling it innovation”?
Second, in the case of the Tampa Trib, where is the data that suggests readers are really hankering for a paper (or a website, or whatever) that doesn’t cover Florida State football anymore? I’d reeeallly like to see those numbers.
Maybe some of the brave, fearless innovators here who have rushed to Jessica’s defense can answer those questions for me.
And by the way: I am a newspaper reporter who also has a very successful blog. I also do a TV gig. I am not afraid of new ways of doing things. I don’t know a lot of newspaper people who are. But the new ways of doing things need to make some freaking sense.

Jul 4th, 2008
Brian Cubbison

You’ve got to admit, this blogger knows how to drive traffic. No small thing. To sum up the points so far:

Newspapers need to change. Good for you for changing.

Change or not, people who lose their jobs are hurting.

Management created this mess and deserves no applause.

At least there’s a plan this time.

The details of the plan are dubious. Assign a reporter out of the circulation area then cut him because he’s out of the circulation area?

Your plan is …

You shouldn’t have blogged about it.

You should have drowned your sorrows complaining about the boss.

I’m telling everyone in the industry not to hire you.

I’m not in your industry.

You spelled a word wrong.

You missed the point.

Jul 4th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

To Les Bowen: Excellent points.

To Steve: You wrote: It strikes me here as journalists are having a chance to “eat their own cooking.” After service in the Armed Forces for 20 years, and a few other jobs along the way, I have noticed how what “really happened” and what is reported are often quite different. Sometimes with serious consequences. Most often, it is because the reporter was not familiar with the actual organization/technology/operation on which they reported.
Inaccuracy and ignorance on a major beat should not be tolerated. The only way to be accurate and informed is to become an expert on that beat.
If you are alluding to the coverage of foreign affairs, international and U.S. military issues, I would point out that in recent years our elected officials have seen to it that pablum has been served to reporters who have tried to cover important events.
I will also point out _ and this is extremely important _ that journalists and the media have failed this country miserably over the last eight years. There has been a systemic failure to accurately report and dig for the truth.

To all the readers of this blog: Let me point out a comment by Ms. DaSilva on one of her other blog posts: “People in Miami do not like politics as much as people in Washington, D.C. No, I haven’t consulted a survey, and I don’t have a reference to back it up. I don’t need one. It’s common sense.”
I hope her “common sense” will be able to deal with a heavy tax burden her generation faces when it comes to paying the Iraq War credit card debt. I’m guessing when that time comes, people in Miami, Fla. and Miami, Ohio will realize they need to “like politics” enough to pay attention to what’s important.

Jul 4th, 2008
ANDY KENT

Jessica,

I hope by now you have taken the initiative to click on the link provided by Garey G. Ris and to go back and find the entry made by the McClatchy rep Wendell Barnhouse referred to so that you can see for yourself just how unoriginal and pointless your hero’s rhetoric actually was. If not, then you need to post haste.

I don’t think I can simplify this anymore than by reminding you that with a smaller staff and one that is increasingly devoid of experienced journalists with invaluable contacts, sources and knowledge, the notion that your news organization can improve its local or “hyperlocal” coverage is beyond ridiculous.

In no way am I trying to bring down your enthusiasm or insult your naivete, although your decision to type in the words “Amen,” and “You go, girl,” at a time when good people were being tossed to the street greatly disturbed me. I have read your explanation about how you were applauding Miss Coats for her “revisionist” plan and not for handing out pink slips, but nonetheless, you can now see how important it is to choose your words wisely and read and re-read before hitting enter.

This is a very trying and emotional time in our industry, so the tone of some of the responses you have gotten on this blog, while over-the-top in many instances, should not come as a surprise. Is there a light at the end of this long and dark tunnel? I sure hope so, and this is coming from a veteran journalist who did embrace the advent of multi-media, blogging, podcasts and vodcasts before they became as en vogue as they are now. But we still have a long way to go, and the short-sightedness of so many of the higher-ups, including your hero, is doing more to push us further away from that light.

And with that I will end this entry.

Jul 4th, 2008
Ileana

geez, there are a lot of comments on here…

thanks for this post.

Jul 4th, 2008
dtr

It’s an interesting post, and equally interesting thread that follows.

Like others, I admire your enthusiasm. But I also agree you probably should tone it down. I’d also encourage you to apply a little skepticism.

The problems of the TT are well known in the industry and stem from policies not dissimilar from what your executive is embarking on now: a radical makeover that puts more faith in change than in what we’ve learned as an industry. Declaring the print product is second to the online product for example doesn’t take into consideration that the majority of operating revenues still come from print. One day the reverse may be true, but until then it’s probably not advisable to kill the Golden Goose until it can’t quack anymore.

If there’s a traditional news product that makes more from online than print I haven’t seen it yet.

The fact of the matter is that change is inevitable, but absolutely no one has found a sustainable direction. It’s not in the way we do business currently, but it may well not be found in narrow definitions of hyperlocal, competition, and the broadband world. It’s just not that simple.

I certainly applaud your executive being willing to abandon past practices. But her admission that she doesn’t know where she’s going could be every bit as dangerous to the survival of the TT as doing nothing at all.

Jul 4th, 2008
mccxxiii

“Those people who attack you in the comments section are dinosaurs, who are clinging to their old, petrified model of public communication.”

Not necessarily. I, for one, believe 100 percent in the idea that web-first will save news organizations, that a good news site isn’t just the paper put online, and that the newsroom must change or die. I’m glad to see Tampa making bold changes in an attempt to turn things around. We should all be doing that!

None of that prevents me from saying:

1. Regardless of your industry, it’s bad form in the work world to publicize the details of an internal meeting. Even if this particular boss doesn’t care (or even if she *asked* you to do it), you have to think about your larger, long-term reputation.

2. Misspellings such as “layed” and “weild” — even if it’s “just in a blog post” — show a lack of attention to detail that makes people question the quality of your other work.

3. It’s simply bad manners to cheer about layoffs in such short order, particularly as someone who is not being laid off. A more mature person would balance “speaking the truth” with showing consideration to your co-workers who are in tough, tough situations right now. Sometimes the professional and the personal collide, and a how you handle that is a measure of your character.

Please keep blogging, Jessica. Your generation will be the one that saves the news business, and we will all thank you for it. But please also bear in mind that journalism isn’t just a calling, it’s an industry … a work environment full of small-world moments where your reputation most certainly will precede you.

Jul 4th, 2008
Les Bowen

One more thing and then I’ll shut up. What bothers me the most probably isn’t Jessica but the fact that Ms Coats was able to snow Jessica so completely with her B.S.
Ms. Coats: You are conducting a salvage operation after a train wreck. Nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but please don’t dishonor the memory of the poor souls whose careers are lying mangled in the wreckage by pretending that you’re reinventing railroads.

Jul 4th, 2008
Giggle Grrrrl

Note to the intern who believes she’s a maven of media commentary: check out the correct spelling of “layed off.”

As someone else noted, she knows how to drive traffic to her blog. But does she really understand writing, let alone real journalism?

Doubtful.

Nice little bit of melodramatic brown nosing, though.

p.s. Try to find a better term than “reexplained.” Dear God, in the old Trib newsroom, you would have been laughed off stage.

Jul 4th, 2008
Paige

I think the most disappointing thing about Jessica’s blog is that she and some of the other (young) posters here don’t see that what newspapers are doing now is what’s killing the industry. We want to be young and hip, they say, but what they really mean is pander to the lowest common denominator. What she doesn’t understand is that accuracy, information, ties to the community, in-depth story-telling and a slew of other things that used to matter still means something to some “older” people in the business. So on this blog, some think it’s petty to point out these young journalists’ mistakes, such as writing layed off instead of laid off or there instead of their. But there was a time when getting those things right meant something. It’s also harder for the higher-ups to fool veterans in the business, because they know when these people say we want to be fresh, innovative and have to do things in a new way, what they really mean is we want to pay less for less talent, and get news out there fast, regardless of accuracy or relevance. If that’s the future of journalism Jessica is fighting for, I don’t know that it’s a battle worth winning.

Jul 4th, 2008
Rogers Cadenhead

From Wendell Barnhouse: “Unlike your private diary/thoughts, what you blog or post on Al Gore’s invention is there for the world to see and read. 2. Writing on blogs need to be filtered. Think before you write.”

I’m a fan from the days we worked together at the Star-Telegram, Wendell, but comments like this show that you’re not fully caught up to the future yet.

Blogs don’t have to be filtered. Young journalists like Jessica grew up with blogs and social networks like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. The idea that your thoughts have to be filtered by an authority before they deserve to be shared with the world is no longer operative.

As she said to another commenter, her bosses at the paper are aware of her blogging and have been supportive.

To the rest of the commenters: Watching veteran journalists line up to play kick-the-intern is a sad spectacle. If you’re so embittered by the economic downturn in newspapers that you get angry when young new journalists don’t feel the same way, you need to learn some patience. Jessica will have all of that enthusiasm beaten out of her publishers, editors and readers. It just takes time.

Jul 4th, 2008
Mike Plugh

It’s interesting how an intern with a blog, a few misspellings, and a little too much insider information can move bitter, old newsroom hacks out of their malaise when the country has been going to shit for a decade and we get the same old “objective”, PR massaged, news from their lazy fingers.

It’s laughable that the newspaper industry should continue with its declining, petrifying model of doing business because it will save a few jobs. Lay offs are tragic and often they come as a result of some administrative failure that falls on the shoulders of hard-working professionals. In this case, they have as much to do with a shifting media environment as they do anything else.

When Gutenberg invented the printing press he probably began a cycle of lay offs for talented manuscript artists everywhere. When the telegraph was invented, pony express riders everywhere had to start selling their horses for glue and picked up a shovel to dig for new high-wire poles. Journalists who’ve been blindly assuming that the internet, and blogs in particular, weren’t going to make them obsolete are now finding out that it’s almost too late. Reading the tea leaves might have helped, and breaking out of the tired, old, failed standard of objectivity might have prevented a war, torture, and the utter disdain that most of the public feels for the press.

Jessica, there are a lot of good journalists out there. There are some who will be losing their jobs. There are some who deserve to lose their jobs and some who don’t. To avoid being an out of work journalist, stay on top of technology and the changing media landscape. Also, do your own research and never use an official source without running circles around it to find the complete story. That’s a starting point lesson that your bitter colleagues should have learned a long time ago.

Jul 4th, 2008
Clay McCuistion

Former Tribune staffer here. Perhaps it’s too late to say anything constructive. The unhappiness and anger here break my heart.

I’ve boiled it down this way. Most folks in the news biz, it seems to me, share certain universal values. Truth. Accountability. An informed public. The marketplace of ideas.

The question is — for you, for me, for everyone — do our news publications advance these values? If yours does, good. If yours doesn’t, does journalism hold the same worth?

That’s for all of us to answer on our own.

Jul 4th, 2008
Mike Plugh

I feel the need to post an addendum to my last comment here. Some excellent writing has been posted in various places around the net regarding this blog and the subsequent comments. It calls out both sides for a lack of civility and a lack of sensitivity to the plight of the journalists in Tampa.

I’m guilty of that in both my entries, however, I believe there’s a fight that’s been started here over an intern’s commentary that is counterproductive.

I posted this over at John Zhu’s blog:

“There is certainly an element of frustration that has built up over this situation, and other like it, but to take out that frustration on an intern who is expressing herself publicly makes them fair game. If these journalists cared about the demise of their industry at all, they’d have suggested another side to the story, perhaps blogged about it themselves. They’d have acted as mentor, rather than judge, jury, and executioner. For all their experience, they chose to beat up a kid trying to tell a story rather than tell the whole story themselves.

That, in a nutshell, is the disconnect between backwards thinking journalists and reality. If they understood the medium, they’d have done what you did here. Instead, they simply reacted. A progressive-minded journalist would have taken the opportunity to write a story about how the industry has failed its loyal practitioners, its trade, and its own future. That journalist would have used the intern in their story to reflect a new sensibility that misses the long standing contributions of the newspaper to American discourse and the hijacking of both the business and the storyline that administrations have done.”

So, to make things clear, I have tremendous sympathy for the hard-working people that are faced with losing their jobs in this situation and I understand completely that the failed management practices put in place years ago are as much to blame as any competing factor. That said, those who would attack an intern for telling a story here get no sympathy at all. Harsh language and name calling aside, they should be ashamed at their lack of custodial responsibility to their profession, and to their lack of commitment to the story. Flame wars from journalists, rather than corrective narratives, prove the point so many are trying to make about outmoded ways of thinking.

Jul 4th, 2008
Clay McCuistion

The point being (can’t resist the second post): The values that we espouse as journalists are what’s important.

We too often confuse those values with our job itself, or the company that pays our bills. They are not, and have never been, the same thing.

If all newspapers disappeared tomorrow, truth, accountability, etc., would remain important. It may ultimately be the case that these values cannot be sustained in the context of a publicly traded entity. (Some would argue that it has never been the case.)

We must all decide, for ourselves, how to best uphold those values in the context of daily life. (A job in newspapers? Websites? Meatpacking?) There is not, and has never been, a single answer.

Jul 4th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

Mr. Cadenhead: I believe that I’m caught up with the future just fine, thank you.
You are espousing stream-of-consciousness, say-anything-you-want writing. What frosted me and others about the young intern’s blog was that it was “reporting” on newsroom meeting that changed the lives of a great many people she is currently working with. I believe writing something about that situation requires thoughtfulness, perspective and understanding. She took three called strikes.
And my point about filtering is that unfiltered works if you’re writing in your diary or daily journal. When what is written will be posted for all to see, I think it requires self-editing, filtering, second thoughts … whatever.

Jul 4th, 2008
Mike Plugh

Mr. Barnhouse wrote:

“I believe writing something about that situation requires thoughtfulness, perspective and understanding. She took three called strikes.
And my point about filtering is that unfiltered works if you’re writing in your diary or daily journal. When what is written will be posted for all to see, I think it requires self-editing, filtering, second thoughts … whatever.”

I sympathize with your feelings here, but I think that horse has left the barn. The type of civil discourse that you describe is something that neither exists on-line nor in the traditional media in 2008. It’s not to say that civil discourse doesn’t exist, but rather the variety you describe.

What you’re describing is a presentational model of communication, which historically has been marked by stewing ideas and mulling words. The presentational model of communication is what’s rapidly being replaced by blogs of this nature. The new model of communication is conversational, rather than presentational, if I might frame it that way. It resembles speech more than print, owing much to electronic transmission for that difference. See: secondary orality.

One of the reasons that people have increasingly turned away from newpapers is that we live in a post-literate world of primary electronic media. It’s not to say that people are no longer literate, but that they aren’t literate in the same cognitive organization that once dominated American discourse. Secondary orality is marked by its similarity to speech, and as such works without the stewing and mulling that has gone into journalism for most of American history.

The new paradigm is one of difference social sensibilities, in contrast to superior or inferior. Those sensibilities include a tolerance for blunt, incomplete, and opinion-oriented construction and a dynamic and quickly moving sub-narrative. As a journalist in this environment, the proper response would seem to necessarily be to play by the grammatical rules of the medium and branch the narrative to include your own more complete and accurate take on what’s going on. The problematic take is to flame the writer, without offering a narrative of your own. That’s how a conversation goes, and hence that’s how this medium works.

Imagine you overheard DaSilva telling this story to a large group of people and then decided to walk up to them to tell them why she’s inadequate, wrong, and lacking decency. Certainly the result produced would either be an argument or some form of awkward and uncomfortable exchange. Entering the conversation to provide a counterpoint and fill in the narrative blanks would make a great conversation and one worthy of attention. That’s how journalism has to move in this new media environment. That’s how this conversation will turn productive. Otherwise we’re just giving each other the finger from the safety of our cars on a crowded highway.

Jul 5th, 2008
Bill

This post, like many writings, is imperfect. But the vitriol with which the messenger is being assailed is undeserved — especially considering the abandonment of journalistic principles (objectivity, fairness paramount among them) that has accompanied it.

I believe the print product, because it is still the cash cow, deserves attention.

I believe our highest responsibilites as an accurate, respected community watchdog are paramount — when the masses grow tired of obsessing over pregnant/inebriated celebrities and thug athletes, we had better have our reputation intact when they decide they’d like to find out why their taxes are so high and/or why our country’s global diplomatic standing is in disrepair.

That said, our traditional formula is failing our ability to exist. We must keep gathering and relaying reliable, accurate, relevant information — yet we must do so in a more engaging manner.

Lively heds. And lively designs.

Alternative Story Formats.

Compelling narratives that evoke emotion.

Smart application of resources.

Investigative/enterprise pieces that make a difference.

Is it a shame that many newspaper managers have either pushed the limit on profit margins or allowed their news products to fall short in engaging readers? You betcha.

But I have witnessed just as much, if not more, futile resistance from within the trenches around me that is also to blame for failing to engage readers to the point that they feel obligated to subscribe.

Similarly… just as it is a shame that Advertising and Marketing departments have not implemented a business model that enables financial success via our Web sites, it also is a shame that our newsroom managers have allowed our Web sites to cannibalize the vast majority of what might be best served as empirical work for the paid-subscription print product.

The issues I’ve presented here are far more relevant to the point of this blog than are the simplistic — and in many instances, misguided — attacks pointed at its writer.

Stop b*tching. Start solving problems.

Jul 5th, 2008
adg

My name is Darryl, and I am a dinosaur.

The blog and the comments are all delightful, but I very much worry that no one seems to have taken note that all of this appears to be free!

With 124 comments as I type this, the “post” certainly has sparked a nice “conversation.”

But with not a single link to a subscription site, not a single banner ad and not a single click-through ad, I fail to see how this “engaging of the reader” can contribute to Jessica, or anyone else, getting paid!

The reason I have yet to join other dinosaurs in extinction is that in about 40 years so far in radio, TV, newspapers and wires I have refused to work for free.

People have paid me as a “hyper-local” and as a foreign correspondent; as a shooter and as an editor; and they continue to pay me, even into my dotage.

No one, however, has ever paid me for random musings.

They pay me for reporting and editing and shooting.

They pay me for stuff in newspapers, on air, on the Internet, in magazines.

Where the “product” gets placed is pretty much irrelevant, as long as I get paid and the payers get paid, whether by advertisers, subscribers or donors.

And I can assure you, even if I could be guaranteed several hundred million hits on my random musings from, say, the Olympics next month, and nothing more, I would be cashing in my plane ticket and staying home.

Professionals, even those incredibly self-enamoured with their terrific insights into whatever, are no longer professional when they give it away.

The biz needs to get its act together and make sure the end-users pay for the “product.”

Giving away our “product” and allowing the aggregators to collect the ad revenue is really not a very good idea — particularly because if the buyers of our services as hacks aren’t getting paid, then we aren’t either.

The news costs money!

Let’s stop giving it away.

Jul 5th, 2008
Dana Caldwell

Yes, Miss Jessica has drawn interest and scrutiny. Not so difficult to do. Take some pot-shots at passing SUVs on Dale Mabry and you’ll get the same.

And probably even some crazies to applaud you for it.

You are getting all those hits you brag about on yet another of your blog sites, Jessica, because outraged journalists, real ones, have been pointed to it because of its lack of tact, talent and disgusting celebration of same old, same old ideas to somehow try and justify the idiotic and evil decision to lay off Scott Carter.

To the Coats plan:
1) “Hyper local?” That’s the aim, but you cut bureau folks (six of 10 from that arena, I believe)? Most of the “community sections” are now weekly and Pasco County is being (or has been) cut from daily to five times per week. As usual, just blather from an ME to spin the unjustifiable. You are too young to know it, Jessica, but “local” has been stressed at every newspaper in the country (USA Today being the exception, of course) for centuries. Not exactly Lewis and Clark thought there.

2) Paper secondary to Web site. Akin to putting the egg before the chicken. When these suits began putting so much focus on Web sites a decade-plus ago, the obvious direction was to give customers a taste, then charge them for content. That happens at only a handful of outfits. Why in the world push something that costs nothing? A real shock that circulation falters so dramatically when there is zero motivation to subscribe. And where exactly does the Web site content come from? Yes, reporters (not bloggers). It’s just stupid. But the Trib’s not alone there. Yet another not-exacly-unique idea by Coats (who apparently liked the McClatchy VP’s “burning bridge” analogy so much that she copied it).

No longer at war with the St. Pete Times? What the frick do you think drove Trib staffers? Who is the enemy, the competition, now? What’s the new motivation, trying to beat the local weekly on “Woman Makes Quilts” or “This Restaurant Is Really Rockin’” stories?

These are Coats’ revolutionary ideas to save Mother Trib?

Good grief.

When I arrived at the Trib in 1995, it had the largest circulation (square miles-wise) in the country. But I’m sure you knew that, Jessica. Miami was soon retreated from and the circulation now covers, what, three or four counties (with all that hyper-local weekly attention)?

To cut Carter’s position due solely to geographical reasons is ridiculous. Everyone in that department, well, the “old farts” like me who are well-past whimsy, knows well there are other long-timers whose necks should have been on the block. Applause, rather than disgust, would’ve permeated the sports department. Carter, one of my best friends, was talked into the move to Tallahassee while his wife was pregnant and earning a great salary for a company she loved. Carter also loved his job of covering the (Devil) Rays and Lightning. Absolutely adored it. But he was a good soldier. One year later, he’s gone for doing what was asked of him. Yeah, that is really innovative. Hyper BS.

As others have stated, dropping FSU is a big deal. With Andy Staples gone from Gainesville and not yet replaced, it seemed obvious after the hatchet job on Carter that the Trib was going to go AP or college kids for both the Seminoles and Gators beats. Guess what? Not so much. A long-timer has now been forced to change roles. He’ll be the UF beat guy. From Tampa. Brilliant.

The public butt-kissing and cluelessness would have been disgusting enough, Jessica, had no layoffs occurred. You chose to use the opportunity of severe misfortune and injustice to fawn over a managing editor who is about as revolutionary as Cornwallace.

I was once very proud to call myself a Tampa Tribune veteran (1995-99).

Not so much these days.

You go, girl. Just go.

Jul 5th, 2008
Ed Bulgrin

I thought the line about employees losing their home and living in cardboard boxes was feckless and insensitive and showed a lack of “real world” maturity. It’s nice living at home with mommy and daddy, isn’t it?

Jul 5th, 2008
Rogers Cadenhead

Wendell Barnhouse writes, “You are espousing stream-of-consciousness, say-anything-you-want writing.”

I’m not espousing it, I’m acknowledging reality. Back when I was in the newspaper business we were the only game in town. Today, every source a reporter interviews is capable of sharing the details of that conversation before the story ever sees print and some sources are bypassing reporters entirely. Your own career move is an embodiment of that trend, now that you’re writing for the Big 12 conference. They can speak directly to fans of its sports without the media filter, and I think it’s likely to find a huge audience. (I wish you were covering the SEC, though.)

Jessica DaSilva has guts for blogging about the internal goings-on at her paper — the kind of guts that reporters love when demonstrated by an employee in somebody else’s business.

Jul 5th, 2008
ANDY KENT

“Jessica DaSilva has guts for blogging about the internal goings-on at her paper — the kind of guts that reporters love when demonstrated by an employee in somebody else’s business.”

Rogers Cadenhead,

Guts and good ol’ common sense are two entirely different things. I think you’re missing Wendell’s key point here and that is the importance of being your own filter and moderator in this day and age of the 24/7 news cycle and immediate reactions.

Like I said in my earlier message to Jessica, I wish she had filtered, edited and moderated herself at least once or twice before hitting the enter button and allowing her words to be seen by all. If she had, then I would hope she would have deleted the “Amen,” and “You go, girl,” remarks right away, and then proofed the rest of her entry to make sure there weren’t any other easy targets for her critics to go after.

If there was a message in her entry that was worth delivering, it got lost somewhere between the cheerleading/hero worship and the errors.

Jul 5th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

Whether one is blogging, writing for a newspaper, for a web site, for radio, for television or for your annual Christmas newsletter, thinking before writing is of vast importance.
I erred by using the word “filtered.” Some could interpret “filtering” as “censorship.” That was not my meaning.
I agree with Mr. Kent: Guts without common sense can lead to shooting first and asking questions later.

Jul 5th, 2008
Pat Thornton

“What she doesn’t understand is that accuracy, information, ties to the community, in-depth story-telling and a slew of other things that used to matter still means something to some “older” people in the business.” - Paige

Paige, I don’t give a rats ass what older (younger or whatever) people in the business care about. I care about what our readers/users care about. I care about making products that people care about.

This is a business. Let us never forget that.

I do NOT care about appeasing employees who do NOT want to adapt. I do NOT care about appeasing employees who do NOT care about what our readers/users want.

Yes, people care about accuracy and information. And that’s exactly what Jessica is giving us. What is inaccurate about her post? Oh, she misspelled a word. Every writer does. That’s what copy editors are for.

Storytelling? A lot of people want accuracy and information — not “storytelling” in the traditional print sense. That’s the future the Web gives us (should be the present). Imagine a world in which we create stories and other tidbits if information based on actual information and not for an archaic “news hole.”

There are far too many journalists who make journalism for themselves and not for the people. I’m not a storyteller — I’m an information provider.

Jul 5th, 2008
KT

They’re so cute when they’re that age.

Jul 5th, 2008
kat

Jessica,

It is very clear from your post that you have a LOT to learn. Maybe if you had been around during the days when the Trib was a GOOD paper, you would have a more realistic, informed opinion. You are clearly naiive and clueless about newspapers, their role in society, and how Media General and your idolized Janet Coats have managed to ruin them. God help us if you represent the future of journalism.

Jul 5th, 2008
Mindy McAdams

I find it very interesting that so many people here have mentioned “butt kissing” and “brown nosing.” I guess they think that any time someone praises a manager, that is the only possible motive behind the praise.

I’d like to think we could always compliment an editor, or a manager, if he or she proposed a policy that we admire — just because we think the policy has merit.

And no, I don’t praise anyone for firing people. (Neither did Jessie.)

Jul 5th, 2008
kat

I should add, back in the “old” days (probably before you were born), the Trib truly practiced hyperlocal journalism. We put out 13 daily, locally zoned editions — more than any other paper in the country. The zones were actually good and contained news. Imagine that! They are such a far cry from the drivel the Tribune publishes today.

Jul 5th, 2008
Colin

Yes, there’s a good bit of vitriol on this thread. And no, at 39, I don’t think I’m a dinosaur journalist by any means. Experienced, yes. Dinosaur, no. Hack, no. Successful in print journalism, and doing a great deal of internet freelance work, as well.

For those of you going to great lengths to defend Jessica, and even Jessica herself trying to defend herself in this firestorm, that is certainly your right.

However, as several have pointed out in her defense, she’s doing a service by giving her unfiltered, unvarnished account of the “truth.” So why would you expect her detractors — me definitely among them — to do anything less than give her a come-uppance that was equally unfiltered and unvarnished? Her detractors are giving back exactly what she dished out.

It’s no more fair to say we shouldn’t jump on a poor intern than it does to dismiss anyone who does so as a “dinosaur” or a “hack.”

All I know is that I would not want to be Ms. DaSilva in that office on Monday morning. Maybe the job offers are pouring into her email inbox, and if so, good for her, I suppose. I think she’ll want an opportunity to exit that newsroom as quickly as possible based on the reactions she’ll likely encounter from the people who actually put the product out — at least those who remain, though I would assume people such as Scott Carter would treat her with equal disdain. And I’d love it if she accurately blogged about those unfiltered, unvarnished reactions. That’s what it’s all about, after all, right?

I don’t know Scott Carter at all. I’ve never met him. I’ve never worked in Florida. Never even worked east of the Mississippi. I’d never even heard his name until this week. And I feel absolutely awful for him, his family and his peers. Ms. DaSilva has made it sound like she lived a hand-to-mouth existence while growing up the oldest of four children. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is, she should have learned a bit about empathy, what to say (or write) and when to say (or write) it.

Best of luck to all those who were already let go and to all those still awaiting their fate.

Jul 5th, 2008
M.A. Murdoch

Oh, you poor, naïve little girl.
I’m so glad you have a nice internship at The Tampa Tribune, where you can wax poetic on your blog about your brilliant boss and her brilliant ideas about how to save her newspaper, while the industry and its dedicated workers are collapsing.
Perhaps when you’re older and wiser, and you’ve actually done some substantial work for a newspaper and have put in many years, including much of your heart and soul, you might be in a better position to understand what is really happening to the industry.
A free and vigorous and viable press is one of the foundations of America. It was so important to America’s founders that they wrote it specifically into its official documents.
What’s occurring now is that newspaper managers and media company chiefs are being sold a bill of goods about how the Internet is the only way to survive, and so they’re all jumping on the cyber bandwagon, throwing aside talented, dedicated people in favor of techno geeks and cheap labor who can sustain a Web page but who can’t write a compelling article or edit a story with care and sound news judgment.
Post it now, fix it later.
Get it out on the Web site now. Who cares if it’s well crafted or well edited.
The prevailing mindset – always spoken as a fact and foregone conclusion — that nearly everybody in America is constantly on the Internet and gets his or her news from that source is an outright lie.
A huge study released this week by the well-respected Pew Charitable Trust research foundation found that 27 percent of Americans DO NOT USE THE INTERNET AT ALL. They don’t have a computer. Or, if they do, they don’t subscribe to any Internet service. That’s more than one-fourth of the people in this country. And in a nation of nearly 300 million, 27 percent is – well, my dear intern, you do the math.
Who serves them? What do they do for their news? I’d be willing to bet they read a newspaper.
I’ve been a journalist for 28 years. I’ve worked from coast to coast. I worked at the Tribune in the 1980s. Many of my friends worked there for years; some still work there and have been there for 25-plus years. Many of them have been given the unceremonious boot in the past couple of years.
The Tribune, like most other papers who have dumped their real-life staffers in favor of the ether, isn’t any better since their departures. It’s no more relevant or compelling. And TBO is an adequate Web site, but it doesn’t replace what a real, quality print edition can offer. Like most newspapers these days, the Tribune is filled with people who are stressed out over staff cuts; people who are doing double and triple the duties they used to because they have to pick up the work of those laid off; and, most regrettably, those people are looking to get out of an industry and a profession they once loved and felt passion for.
Those good people suffer and our profession suffers, as do readers.
If any of this seems to you like something to cheer about, as in your inane “you go, girl” line, you are probably well suited to the “new” age of journalism. The blind leading the blind.
As the esteemed and prescient author Kurt Vonnegut said, “So it goes.”

Jul 5th, 2008
Paige

Pat,
I used story-telling as the means of an art form. You can give accurate information and tell a “story” at the same time. I guess what I was trying to say that went over your head was that it’s important to make what we write interesting to the reader. Often times, it helps if the person is knowledgeable about what he/she is writing about and has a feel for the audience he/she is writing for. I know that newspapers have let those things go in favor of young, less-experienced (cheaper) labor.
It must be nice to lump all readers into one category, but that is naive. You give the reader what they want. What, pray tell, do they want? I believe if you have more than two readers you may end up with people who “want” different things. As long as you seem to know what readers care about so well, perhaps you can share it and save the whole industry. And believe it or not, the fact that journalists did care about what they wrote had a positive effect on the industry. And it’s ridiculous to suggest if a journalist cares about what they’re writing and how they’re writing it, that they don’t care about what the reader cares about. Most journalists consistently try to engage readers and appeal to their interests. But I don’t think it involves lowering our standards. It sounds to me like you’re just interested in pandering.

Jul 5th, 2008
ANDY KENT

“Paige, I don’t give a rats ass what older (younger or whatever) people in the business care about. I care about what our readers/users care about. I care about making products that people care about.”

So Pat, what you are saying is our readers/users want uninformed, poorly researched, mistake-filled stories or blog entries?

“Yes, people care about accuracy and information. And that’s exactly what Jessica is giving us. What is inaccurate about her post? Oh, she misspelled a word. Every writer does. That’s what copy editors are for.”

Well, apparently she didn’t have a copy editor this time. And while certain parts of her entry were accurate in telling what she heard at this internal meeting, her description of Miss Coats’ “new business model,” as being revolutionary and cutting edge has already been proven numerous times to be anything but. See the link Garey G. Ris provided to the Wall Street Journal article on the WaPo’s hyperlocal experiment if you are confused.

“There are far too many journalists who make journalism for themselves and not for the people. I’m not a storyteller — I’m an information provider.”

UGH!! There is no help for you whatsoever if you actually sat down, typed out this irresponsible and ridiculous line, and then saw fit to include it in your comment. Information provider?!? Please. I think you sat too close to the fireworks last night or something.

“I find it very interesting that so many people here have mentioned “butt kissing” and “brown nosing.” I guess they think that any time someone praises a manager, that is the only possible motive behind the praise.

I’d like to think we could always compliment an editor, or a manager, if he or she proposed a policy that we admire — just because we think the policy has merit.

And no, I don’t praise anyone for firing people. (Neither did Jessie.)”

Oh Mindy,

Nice try, but I’d like to think we’d do our homework a little better and hold off on complimenting an editor or manager until we knew for sure that the policy he or she proposed was an original one and had not already failed in one form or another at other papers.

And as I have mentioned before along with others, perhaps if Jessie had edited herself and throught a little bit about how her words might come across, she wouldn’t have been perceived as having applauded the firings.

Jul 5th, 2008
Elaine Silvestrini

Something makes me ill about criticizing an intern. She is, after all, just a kid. Sure she’s plenty naive. But we don’t have all the answers either. And we journalists all started out as obnoxious kids who were going to change the world. Most of us still have a part of that in us. Most of us really never want to grow up. It’s what drives us. It may be coated in a very thick shell of cynicism, but it keeps us passionate about the business.
But one thing we’ve acquired as we learned our way was a censor. Not the kind that keeps us from speaking the truth, but the kind that comes with maturity, the kind that keeps us mindful of how we appear to others and sensitive about the impact our words will have, especially when we publish those words or broadcast them or post them on the Internet.
Of course, some of us dinosaurs haven’t learned that lesson or we wouldn’t be threatening to blackball this kid from the business or taking very public cheap shots about her spelling.
As a current Trib staffer, I will say I respect Janet Coats, and understand she is in an impossible situation. At the same time, I disagree very strongly with some of her recent decisions and have serious concerns about where we are headed. But I respect the fact that she is not telling us we have to do more with less and is acknowledging that the very idea is bullshit. I also understand that she has to do something or we will all go down in flames and appeciate that she is doing her best. To clear one thing up, she did not steal the burning bridge analogy. Even though Mr. Weaver did not invent the phrase, Janet has repeatedly attributed it to his blog and has quoted him frequently.
It’s ridiculous how this whole conversation has broken down into camps of people who want to canonize Jessica and who think the rest of us are stuck in 1974 (why 1974?) and those who want ban her from the profession.
What Jessica and her defenders don’t seem to understand is that there is something deeply wrong with cheering on the boss at the very time she is swinging her ax while criticizing those with the wounds. I know Jessica (sort of) tried to take back her comment about being sick of us whining. But the “clarification” (she says she didn’t say what she said) was way too little. And she still hasn’t given any evidence that she gets it, that she knows how wrong her words were. That’s the thing about the Internet. To use another cliché, you can’t unring a bell.
Make no mistake about it: If you do celebrate the person swinging the ax, those who are cut and those who are ducking won’t like it. We are already in pain and looking for a place to direct our anger. You really shouldn’t volunteer to be a target.
One thing journalists are pretty good at is expressing rage. So forgive us if we get angry at your insensitivity and your seeming cheery, know-it-all attitude and the fact that you easily could change directions in your life without consequence, when we feel stranded on that burning bridge, running toward what we don’t know. And understand when we boil over when you accuse us of not coming up with new ideas when it seems all we have been doing for years is pitching ideas or trying to think of them. And please, if you know how to save journalism without selling out, do tell.
We know change is unavoidable and is our only chance. We know we have to listen to younger people’s ideas and be willing to try new things.
But Jessica, your timing sucks.
And as long as I’m using old, worn-out phrases, one of the great things about journalism has been our drive to afflict the comfortable while comforting the afflicted. Somehow, Jessica and her defenders have turned that upside down.
The thing about the Internet is it can be like a loaded gun with no safety lock. It’s so easy to pull the trigger without thinking. But you will never be able to get the bullet back after it’s been fired.
So Jessica, if you are to take anything from this discussion, please try to think the next time you post about how your words will be received.

Jul 5th, 2008
Kate Martin

A lot of journalists are angry. Why wouldn’t we be? Layoffs everywhere. Just look at that map. Nearly 6,000 announced buyouts and layoffs this year alone (this does not count unannounced cuts).

What are we going to do? It’s so hard not to feel completely despondent.

I think we are missing an opportunity by exuding our vitriol at a hapless intern. Instead we should try to do something to pull our industry from the depths.

I personally do not think the solution lies with the young generation any more than it lies to the so-called “dinosaurs” or “luddites.” Our salvation lies with every one of us. We need to think of real-world solutions instead of belittling an optimistic, naive intern.

I should point out that we were all in her shoes once. Has time and turnover made us all so bitter? I hope not.

Jul 5th, 2008
Rose

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Jul 5th, 2008
Don

Wow. What nonsense.
First: “Something makes me ill about criticizing an intern.” Well, the intern chose to march - without experience, background or context - into the middle of a messy, high-profile situation and very publicly offer her uninformed opinions. Crappy strategy. It’s what we have EDITORS for. It’s why a healthy industry wouldn’t advise interns to shrug off the hard-earned knowledge of experienced veterans, all in favor of dishin’ the ‘you go girl’ airheadedness of some fluffy “speak out” feature in some badly run alt weekly.
Secondly: They’re not minor typos. Screwing up “layed off” instead of “laid off” - in an opinion column that fundamentally dances around about the glorious “new” order of techno-journalism - is shoddy. It glamorizes ignorance and - sorry, Jessica - incompetence. We all make errors; the goal is to learn from them, and ideally to feel GENUINELY bad about making them. Not just out of losing face, but out of failing the standard of professionalism you should strive for. That’s not at all the attitude I pick up in this blog, or from this young woman’s apologists.
Perhaps, Jessica, your day-to-day work in the newsroom is marked by an attitude of “What can I learn?” Sadly, you checked that attitude at the door when you wrote this ill-advised, make-me-the-center-of-attention tripe. Someday, I hope you develop the insight to face that truth head-on. You’ll emerge stronger for doing it.
Thirdly: The cowardly and dishonest slams about “old hacks” that are tossed around by commentators (presumably from blog-land) are pitiful. Go create more opinion blogs, more entertainment blogs, more celeb-sports-sex-fashion-tech blogs … but don’t ever presume to know anything about journalism. News reporting and news editing is about integrity, standards, self-honesty and personal humility - not the brash but uninformed Clear Channel-style, hip hop generation blathering that
this country is drowning in.
We have all the opinion we need, and another 500 percent more. What we need are facts from professionals - supplanting dedicated and trained journalists with every-so-trendy “content providers” is the path to ruin. Citizen journalism is a crock, and Gillmor is a snakeoil salesman.
Paige, thanks for the most sensible comment here. It’s good to know other people are still awake and alert.

Jul 5th, 2008
Colin

Don, I agree with much of what you say, but I think Elaine, by the end of her post, also made it pretty clear she feels Ms. DaSilva made a big mistake.

Elaine, that was a pretty well-reasoned comment from an insider. And I’d bet most of your peers feel very much the same way. I don’t agree with all of your assessment, as I think Ms. DaSilva has earned a good bit of the blowback and that it’s a good lesson for her (should she choose to learn from it). But again, a very good post on your part. Not to cheerlead or anything.

Jul 5th, 2008
ANDY KENT

Elaine,

Clearly you are much closer to the situation than the rest of us and to the people involved, and as Colin said, your post was insightful. The only question I have concerns your portrayal of Miss Coats’ delivery of the new model, because it sounds like she was trying to pass on the same old bullshit and is expecting all of those left at the Trib to do more with less.

So can you enlighten us even more if this interpretation is off base?

Jul 5th, 2008
Kiyoshi Martinez

Jessica,

1.) Never blog about work. In general, it seems to be a bad idea.
2.) Great post. You go girl!

Jul 5th, 2008
Ricky Treon

Looks like I chose a hell of a time to start reading this blog. I know it’s breaking the standard of this thread, but I seem to agree and disagree with a lot of the different “camps” here.

First, to call a blogger dumb for a spelling mistake when what you’re really angry with is the content seems juvenile. Pointing it out is great, because a commenter is a blogger’s copy editor. But don’t use that kind of mistake to make the blogger feel like they can’t report. There’s no connection between the two.

I like what Wendell said about thinking before you write (sad to hear you left the Star-Telegram. I interned there and am about to be a correspondent. I was looking forward to working with you). I’ve learned that about blogging the hard way - with my college newspaper’s blog. Even if you’re right, which I still think I was, you can still be wrong.

I don’t agree at all with laying off the Seminoles writer. Nor do I think hyperlocal will save newspapers. Local coverage will, not coverage of Johnny’s little league team. And it takes staff to do hyperlocal just like it does to write about the Seminoles, so connecting the two (smaller staff and hyperlocal coverage) doesn’t make sense to me.

And the threatening to blackball someone, really? I’ve gotten that threat before, and it shook me. But, it seemed not to work. Hopefully anyone who tries that is seen as bitter and that person is looked down upon more than Jessica.

I love that you blog Jessica. Keep it up. Perhaps not everything is a blog entry, though.

Jul 5th, 2008
Steve in Queens

I think I have this kind of debate in my newsroom or in my own head on a weekly basis at this point. For me, I think at this point its a battle between what’s preferable and what’s real, and the latter has been winning for quite sometime. I’m at least glad to know, Jessica, that there are others out there that are still pursuing this for the right reasons regardless of where the industry ends up.

My personal struggle with my finances gets worse every month seemingly, but the value of what I’m fighting to preserve has never waned.

Jul 5th, 2008
Brad King

Jessica:

Great post. I’ve been a reporter since 1994 — but I’ve been online since 1984…so I get to be both an old fart and a new media geek.

Shrug off the journalists who tell you how pristine the profession is. It’s not and anyone who has worked in it can tell you that. For too many years, journalists locked themselves away, patting themselves on the back, content with the thought that they were doing a public service.

But they forgot to ask the public what they thought.

The Internet and now the Web have changed that — and, as they say in the Unconference world, people are voting with their feet (or eyes or keystrokes).

The industry doesn’t just have to change a little — it needs to change a lot. And people are afraid because jobs that once existed, frankly, aren’t necessary now. There will always been editorial folks — but there is a new skill set required, a technical set that many people just don’t have (and it’s too difficult to learn Calculus and abstract math late in life).

What never goes out of style is gumption and hard work.

So don’t let them get you down — and never believe anyone who tells you “this is the way it’s done.”

Nice post — and good luck with the forum.

Brad King

Jul 6th, 2008
Mike Plugh

One of the things that seems to be lost in the back and forth here is the notion that nothing will save newspapers or the journalists who are working in their structured environment. I’m not suggesting that there won’t be newspapers or that journalists will go away, but rather that the model is already dead and journalists are flocking to other media structures to do their thing.

Somewhere in this comments thread, I read the criticism that there are no ads here and that paid work in the field isn’t going to come from blogging. The idea was that professional journalists don’t work their craft for free and that the blog “craze” can’t support the trade or the tradespeople being pushed out. I think that misses the mark.

I’ve been arguing here that the newspaper and its news model is already dead. People don’t read newspapers anymore. In fact, people don’t watch TV news anymore either. The striking thing is, people don’t go to the net for news in the place of either medium. They just don’t follow the news. What’s changing that for a new generation of people, and a not so new group as well, is the blog collective. The Huffington Post is one such blog collective as is Alternet. These progressive media outlets function in some respects like a traditional news org, but are incorporating vlogs to deal with TV-style coverage and feature interactive comments.

Journalists and specialists of many kinds blog in these places and are paid for doing so. What they provide isn’t hyperlocal, but rather hyperglobal. They deal with every issue on the face of the earth, but do so outside the constraints of the failed, corporate media structure. The success they enjoy is a certain freedom to produce journalism that is edgy, opinionated, and takes a particular point of view. Objectivity is out the window as it should be. The comments sections offer the chance for readers (and now viewers) to provide feedback immediately and digest the news according to its perceived successes and failures. That’s what the audience wants. That’s why they’ve abandoned “one way media.”

The newspaper and television are dead because they are one way communication which don’t reflect the interactive sensibilities of the modern citizen. The practice of objectivity has left most news at the mercy of the pseudo event, press managers who feed the beast. People want to break through the BS, but don’t know how to do it. The answer is partisan journalism. For better or for worse that’s the audience.

Jul 6th, 2008
adg

“I read the criticism that there are no ads here and that paid work in the field isn’t going to come from blogging. The idea was that professional journalists don’t work their craft for free and that the blog “craze” can’t support the trade or the tradespeople being pushed out.”

Mike:

My comment about being paid was not suggesting that blogging, or any other form of getting information to people, doesn’t or won’t work (or is a “craze” for that matter) — it was meant to convey my strong belief that bread, butter and Maseratis only come your way if you have the cash (or credit, although I don’t personally recommend that) to get those things.

I applaud anyone who wants to get his/her point across in a blog, an editorial, an op-ed, a letter to the editor, a comment, whatever.

I just strongly believe that if that is what you want to do for living, make damn sure someone pays you for it!

And I certainly, as someone who has made most of my living from the global rather than local aspect of this dead trade, applaud your suggestion that things are going “hyperglobal.”

I just hope there will eventually be some criterion by which we will be able to judge the reality of various protrayals — in all forms of media — of “hyperglobal” events and ideas.

I suspect we can both write a moving account of riding into the night on the back of a Honda clinging to the waist of a Khmer Rouge cadre.

I just wonder how anyone is going to know if either one of us actually did it or not?

And yes, my PS skills are equal to the task of faking the photo.

“There will always been (sic) editorial folks — but there is a new skill set required, a technical set that many people just don’t have (and it’s too difficult to learn Calculus and abstract math late in life).”

Brad:

A lot of us learned the Calculus and lots of other math early in life — they taught it in school even in the far distant past of my high school and uni days.

A lot of us have also transitioned from hot lead to cold type and from Underwoods to Dells and MBPs and from Tri-X and a K1000 to D3s and 1DsMkIIIs and multi-gig CF cards.

I, too, was once young, and brash and dedicated and excited and eager, and I remain all of those things, except young.

This is great biz and I don’t care who does it, or how they do it, as long they get bloody paid for it!

Darryl

Jul 6th, 2008
Rob Daniels

1) Wendell Barnhouse rocks. He is neither old nor young; he’s just good.
2) Is it really a wise business decision to cover the PTA meeting at Hillsborough Junior High at the expense of the Florida Gators?
3) Can management check back in a year to tell us how the “hyperlocal” stuff compares to FSU, UF, etc., in hit counts?

Jul 6th, 2008
Marcia

I am among those who have worked at the Trib - for less than a year before I escaped in the late 80s. I worked on the county desk - as local at it gets. We would have a couple of decent stories and the rest of the 16-20 page section was filled with total crap.
I don’t know how much the Tribune culture has changed, but back then the majority of the newsroom was two groups of people: those who had strong roots in the Tampa area, and those starting out in the business who would work cheap. The natives settled because they didn’t want to move, most everyone else used their time there on their resumes and got out as soon as they could.

Just a few of the things the nice folks at Media General didn’t tell me about before I moved 2,000 miles to work there:

- They made people pay for parking in the company lot.
- You weren’t allowed to take a Tribune out of the building, and if you wanted to see what the St. Pete Times had, you had to buy your own.
- Very competent editor, I think his name was Bill, had been there 27 years, strong Tampa roots. One Friday a manager told him his services were no longer needed, and he should not come to work on Monday.

What I have learned from my 30 years in newspapers is it’s a business, moreso with Media General than most. This editor Coats has no idea how to attract more readers - no one does - she has been told by the higher-ups to make cuts because it costs more for the people with the yachts and the BMWs to fill their tanks these days. It’s not about journalism, it’s about making money. Period.

Jessica, I can’t help wondering if you are a PAID intern, or if the Trib has generously given you the opportunity to work your ass off for free so you can learn the business. That would be a Media General kind of thing.

Jul 6th, 2008
m

“How is this new model going to affect our competition with The St. Petersburg Times?”

That set Janet off on quite a diatribe.

First, she said people needed to stop thinking of the Times as competition.

—

The Trib isn’t competition for the Times. If they were the quality would be better. Maybe that’s what they’re doing wrong with this current business model of theirs. Maybe the Trib needs to refocus their energy on producing a good product. Maybe that would save them.

Jul 6th, 2008
John Welsh

Wow, what a great posting. The analogy with the film industry is a good one. Let’s also remember, however, that other industries have been taken down as low and as fast by digital and survived - the travel industry for example. Sometimes when they are at their lowest they can often be on the path to recovery.

Jul 6th, 2008
Erik Markov

Its the vicious comments on both sides of this discussion that is causing journalism to go in to a tail spin. These petty attitudes of people who hate to see someone else have an opinion about something that contradicts their own is why newspapers are bogged down in this muck. Many newspapers and those reporters who work for them are afraid to express any opinion at all for fear of ticking someone off.

Read the comment section of any newspaper’s website and for a lot of the discussions, it’s the modern day version of a barroom brawl. Except people can get away with saying stuff they wouldn’t say to another person’s face.

I’m 33, I’ve worked for newspapers for 11 years. I’m certainly not thrilled with what is happening to newspapers. And I’ve passed the years where I was naive about how things worked. I get ticked off a lot about the way things in the office go just like anybody else, but if comments like these are an indication of the way people are interacting with each other, I wouldn’t worry about newspapers, I would worry more about the human race. If we can’t be civil to each other, then there certainly isn’t any need for journalism, because no one is going to want to talk to reporters, except maybe other reporters.

Jul 6th, 2008
Erik Markov

There is one other thing worth noting I think. Whether you agree with Jessica or not, she appears to have posted all or nearly so, of the comments that people have written (Assuming she could block them as you can in most blogs.)

Maybe she is naive, but apparently she is more willing to allow people their opinion, than some of them are willing to allow Jessica to have hers.

And no, I’m not a brown noser or on either side, just pointing out the facts.

Jul 6th, 2008
Mary Catherine

Why are so many posts about the writer and the fellow bloggers? Does anybody have a clue — nobody new is buying the paper! People under 50 are “too busy.” Advertisers aren’t advertising in it. The old farts who’ve bought the paper for 70 years are DEAD. And for people who think your salary is covered by the 50-cent cover price (or whatever it is in Tampa) — you’re stooopid. While I wouldn’t say, “you go, girl,” at least the editor tried to be open and honest and so did the intern. They don’t tell us anything at my place of employment.

Jul 6th, 2008
Paul Gillin

Jessica: The personal attacks by veteran journalists on someone just starting out in the business, combined with the ridiculous nitpicking on insignificant spelling errors demonstrates just how shallow your critics are. You should be commended for telling the story and stating your opinion, which is what blogging is all about.

The people who savage you personally should be ashamed of themselves. Their nastiness only makes them look pathetic and mean. These people call themselves journalists? They’re an embarrassment to the profession.

The volume of trackbacks and comments shows that you’ve clearly touched a nerve. That’s bound to bring critics out of the woordwork, but don’t let it get you down. You done good, girl.

Jul 7th, 2008
Tom

Can you tell us who she does consider to be the competition?

Jul 7th, 2008
Jessica DaSilva

@Tom - She said we shouldn’t look anywhere else to determine where to set our standards. We have to set the bar for ourselves. To a certain extent, I think she’s right. But as we all know, The St. Petersburg Times is fierce. I’m not sure if we should entirely discredit our battle for the bay area, especially if we’re aiming to be more hyperlocal.

Jul 7th, 2008
Karl McKnight

Fabulous discussion set off by good, honest reporting.
Fear would have kept 99 out of 100 journalists from disclosing this.
After 25 years in newspapers, I don’t believe any editor has the answers.
The top-down, Wall Street-driven, monopoly spoiled management has proven itself incapable of charting a sustainable course.
Customer-focused, self-directed work teams set free from the layers of self-serving bureaucracy might provide the knowledgeable, nimble newsrooms we need.
Could we be the ones we’ve been waiting for?

Jul 7th, 2008
Matt Mendelsohn

>>You should be commended for telling the story and stating your opinion, which is what blogging is all about.<<

The problem, and I say this respectfully, is that while that may indeed be what blogging is all about, it’s the polar opposite of what reporting is all about. Making statements like, “The fact Janet made up her own crazy new business model for a newspaper without a prototype or any idea where it would take her was frightening to a lot of people” makes for good blogging but not for good journalism. One simply can’t project thoughts onto subjects. Many people here keep coming back to the issue of nitpicking (the spelling, etc.). But it’s that nitpicking that separates a blog from a newspaper.

Again, with respect, I submit that the problem here isn’t your views on the future of the Trib and journalism (or your editor’s views, for that matter), but whether you can be an objective reporter by day and a subjective blogger by night. You’re showing so many cards via your blog that you might need to pick one sooner or later.

Jul 7th, 2008
Whither Journalism

Jessica:

I appreciate your enthusiasm for journalism. I, too, remember what it felt like to be caught up in the energy and excitement of newspapers. Nothing like it, and, sadly, there won’t be anything like it again.

Honestly, I’m shocked that you believe that it’s remotely “cool” or acceptable to write about something going on at your job, and then to sign your name to it. Not only will your current bosses - justifiably - be upset with you for revealing internal information, but it suggests to future employers that you are not trustworthy. Have you not read ANY of the news coverage of bloggers who have hurt themselves professionally by being “open” and “honest”? Have you not thought at all about what you’re going to do after your internship? By clarifying things, you’re only digging a deeper hole.

I hope you are smart enough to realize, now, that Janet Coats’ revolutionary little plan for going “hyperlocal” is at least as old as what Gannett started doing 25 years ago, along with turning news into McNews in response to the success of USA Today.

Coats, sadly, is just about as clueless as any of the other managers, at the Trib and elsewhere, who have responded to journalism’s great crisis by … randomly shooting off half-baked ideas that have done nothing to save the beast.

Like other clueless editors and publishers, she somehow believes that excising sections and removing experienced reporters is going to make the paper more viable.

Huh? Giving readers ever-fewer reasons to pick up the paper is a plus? Turning news coverage over to those with zero experience on their beats is going to improve the product? As mentioned, Coats is as clueless, or a little more, than the rest.

OF COURSE you want to emphasize local coverage, but is she really so out of it that she doesn’t comprehend how many folks locally graduated from FSU and UF, or are just lifelong fans of those schools’ teams? That’s a huge base of readers, and removing the local Tallahassee sports reporter from the staff is yet another example (of many) of Coats and her minions being penny wise and pound foolish.

Sorry to pick on you, but you willingly thrust yourself into this controversy. The shallowness of your post, which suggests that you have little understanding of the background of this controversy and the reality of the impact of the vast cuts, offers a living example of the kind of journalism on the horizon.

Imagine what we’re going to get when misguided editors and publishers achieve their dream of filling papers (or online news “products”) with blog-style work by unformed, uninformed staff and “community columnists.” Wait, we don’t have to imagine.

Jul 7th, 2008
Brad

@ADG, aka Darryl “the Dinosaur”

Receiving a paycheck can be a reassuring thing, but all you need do is glance at a newspaper coin-op and you’d understand how precarious is your percerption of your own value. How much does a daily cost? Two quarters? How much did it cost eight years ago? One quarter? How about eighty years ago? One nickel?

The truth is that the newspaper business has been modelled on selling “value-added” paper for decades. It is the only business that comes to mind where retail prices mirror the actual cost of materials. If your professional concerns are about “getting paid,” then look no further than your newstand price. Do you think that you can ask for $2.00 for that same product? If not, then why?

If newspapers offered an intrinsic value, then their retail price should at least have tracked with that of magazines. In fact, newspapers have decreased retail prices in the face of material inflation. In fact-ER, on any given holiday weekend, my local paper is delivered for free, without invitation.

So while you might have been compensated for your work in the first 20 years of your career, for the last 20, it has cost your bosses money to put you in print.

I’d wager that the future of journalism lies in blog posts like these and PROFESSIONALS like Jessica. At least on the net, the material costs vs. retail prices are breaking even.

Jul 7th, 2008
David Klein

The funniest part of all this is that this young intern, via her blog, has now become a name in journalism, being linked to by newspaper-oriented blogs all over the place, and at the center of a core discussion (however productive you might think it is or naive you might think she is — personally, I think any naivete she has is clearly working in her favor here). I have no fear whatsoever for her career; she’ll be very successfully working in whatever the communications industry becomes while all her critics are still blaming their bosses for newspapers having gone the way of vaudeville (and how come all those vaudeville impresarios couldn’t come those minstrel shows packing ‘em in, anyway? Just poor management, I guess).

Argue all you want; she’s already shown the power of open communication on the Internet, and it’s why fewer and fewer people are reading newspapers. It’s not about the content anymore, it’s about the technology, and she gets it. I miss the fine audio quality of LPs (hell, even of CDs, vs. compressed iTunes audio), but my missing it isn’t ever going to bring it back. Ms. DaSilva has already encapsulated the future, and the evidence is this very blog and comment thread. She wins.

Jul 7th, 2008
sam

Unfortunately, David Klein and others like him have it wrong. We lose. This type of conversation doesn’t equate to real journalism, even though media companies are bamboozled by certain aspects of the Web, and the prospects of hiring cheaper journalists to make it work. We have already seen shifts in the industry toward blog-based reporting. But so far, nobody is making it work. Nobody reads blog posts about city government, etc., on a newspaper website. In each market, newspaper web sites have only a relative handful of blog devotees, while the vast majority of the readers click on the news stories. The public wants good stories. They were actually buying newspapers when we had staffs and when we were telling good stories. Yet, the pool of reporters continues to dwindle. The promise, and the big lie, turned out to be that once we made our newsrooms information centers and put up more videos and the like, it would actually bring circulation back up because the public would be drawn to get more information than what is available in the newspaper. It didn’t happen, and it won’t happen. Meanwhile, Jessica remains one of millions out there throwing opinions on the Web without doing any real work. It’s easy. It’s not real journalism. It’s a few facts thrown together with personal musings (during work time? geesh. Hope she’s not getting paid.) True, she got all those hits and links. But that was what…. one day? A couple, two or three days? Now…. she goes back to being just another blogger, and just an intern, unless she makes more disparaging statements about older and more experienced journalists. I think we see in her recent post that she learned a lesson, and I don’t think we’ll see that again. She now knows that she has to be outrageous to get the kind of attention she needs in order to drive traffic. The Romaneskos of the world won’t link to her otherwise to drive up her hit count. Too bad, because that’s not what telling a news story is all about.

Jul 8th, 2008
dreaming

just fyi, janet coats probably makes 250k or more from media general, and her newish husband is director of the tbo website and probably takes home a similar paycheck. so it’s easy for them to ‘fight’ for the company that butters their bread.

most of those in journalism today and yesterday would have been right at home as slaves on the plantation. the degree of naivete is breathtaking.

Jul 8th, 2008
Goodbye Ethics

re: Dreaming’s comment about Coats and her husband: Isn’t that called nepotism?

Jul 8th, 2008
EMBARRASSED

If Mindy McAdams truly is a professor in journalism at UF, thank the good Lord I went to UF before she got there. If she is one of the folks teaching Ms. Dasilva … well, that explains a lot.

Jul 8th, 2008
yelvington

It’s remarkable how many self-righteous journalism dinosaurs are posting their (generally anonymous) opinions without troubling themselves to do any reporting or analysis. Scanning through these comments, I see these not-so-sage observations:

* Blogs are a proven failure.
* Hyperlocal journalism is a proven failure.
* Video is a proven failure.
* The Internet is a proven failure.
* All our troubles would go away if we’d just quit giving away our precious content, because free content is a proven failure.

Good lord! Which is worse: Youthful naivete, or the willful ignorance of the middle-aged?

Jul 9th, 2008
Dan Thornton

I spent 7 years as a journalist, both print and online, before recently switching to marketing. And some of the comments here show exactly why so many journalists are going to find themselves without careers.

It’s not cool for a cynical journalist, young or old, to praise their bosses, praise the internet, embrace blogging, or actually do anything other than mutter in the corner about how the business used to be. Let’s bring back typewriters….

I moved to marketing for exactly that reason. I see 100s of opportunities for people with knowledge, skills and contacts to work for themselves or for businesses who are embracing the fact that the internet as a tool is changing the way news is consumed in a more widespread way than the printing press or TV.

If I was a talented and supported sportswriter laid off, I’d be starting my own blog or website that day, offering the exact content that gained this support. And the same for any other journalist.

I see a great future for the likes of Jessica, and the likes of Pat Thornton commenting above, because they don’t adhere to the belief that journalism means carrying a card, writing for a print publication, and being cynical about anything that could ever lead to any type of change.

I’d be happy to offer either of them a job, as I have done recently to someone who demonstrated a passion and flair for writing and working to involve and engage people in news and content.

I wouldn’t hire any myopic, blinkered obsessive compulsive who really feels that an entire message rests on one typo - and I know most readers wouldn’t give a rats behind about it, because they’d have been caught up in the writing.

Journalist/Blogger/Website Owner/Content Manager/Grand Tsar of wordsmithery…..the titles and names don’t matter. It’s about getting content which is valued and added to by your readers. Not only has Jessica got support and coverage, but she’s got more comments than most newspaper articles get. Any of the whiners could do it, but they’re more concerned with placating their fears with some petty sniping and complaints about the state of the world without actually trying to change it…

It really irritates me that I’m working with some journalists and Editors who realise how exciting and interesting these times are for gathering and distributing great content - stories, pictures, video - and yet there are so many people who can’t see their jobs going the same way as manual type setters or blacksmiths (There will still be some print publications and journalists…probably about 10 in each country!).

If you put that whining effort into starting a blog, joining Facebook, involving yourself in Twitter etc, you’d have plenty of ideas about how to save the business. And you might realise plenty of people are making money out of the internet - just not a lot of traditional publishers who still rely on the old display advertising model.

Well done Jessica…long may you continue….

Jul 9th, 2008
walter

interesting to see how many of your readers — especially the ones who were or are reporters — respond with nasty comments. They show how lame the typical journalist can be.

Jul 9th, 2008
Tom Krynski

This conversation isn’t unique to news. People in business are having similar discussions, arguments, etc. The old school business managers vs. the new generation of entrepenuers/techie types who make work “fun”. I tried to buy a lawnmower at sears—-it was on sale and advertised—-it wasn’t in stock. Same thing with a co-worker—-they are ordering it. Why do we need to go to a store, if they can’t give me the product? The tribune may not survive, but there’s no question it can’t keep doing what it has been doing. We news people are finding out what it was like for all those people losing jobs that we used to interview. I don’t like it—-but what can we do? Let’s hope jessica and the other new naive youngsters find a way to keep journalism going.

Jul 9th, 2008
Blythe Terrell

People sure love to flame anonymously, don’t they?

Thanks for sharing this, Jessica. Newspaper journalism should be a community of support, not one of anger, self-righteousness and mockery. These are tough times, and there are a lot of people out there who are seeing long careers fall away into nothing. Those of us still in the field should be working as hard as we always have. This profession is indeed a calling.

I’m 25. I don’t give a damn if people think I’m naive or idealistic. That’s why I’m in newspapers, after all.

Jul 9th, 2008
Jo Urnalismisdead

Meanwhile, the people who have poured sweat, blood, and thousands of unpaid hours of overtime into this unforgiving industry… — Carrie

Reporters are stupid for enabling these conditions. For being professional watchdogs, journalists can’t even figure out how to get decent treatment from the people who sign their checks. “Passion for the craft” is no excuse. A slave who enjoys being a slave is still just, guess what, a slave.

Jul 9th, 2008
Paige

I don’t understand why people who disagree with Jessica’s blog entry, are considered dinosaurs who are mean, self-righteous and unwilling to change. Perhaps, they’re people who have heard Coats’ rhetoric before and have been fighting for a lot longer than two weeks to preserve the future of journalism. Do any of us have the right answers? I think the answer to that is obvious. But I don’t think pointing out that Jessica or Janet Coats may be on the wrong track is spiteful, it’s sharing knowledge that one gains by their experience in the trenches. Not always a bad thing. Also, for the record, layed off, is not a typo or a misspelling. I think if she had said liad off, people might not have said anything. I understand that in typing we can mix up letters or miss a letter or type the wrong letter, but using the wrong word is a different story. The fact that some of you see it as a “just a typo” is one of the problems us “old people” worry about.

Jul 9th, 2008
JR

I admire your writing and enthusiasm. However, you have to understand a few things. One — this isn’t about reporters or editors being afraid to change. It may be easy to think that, but after your 4th or 5th newsroom meeting where the brass tells you not to be afraid of change, you will begin to understand it is all just a bunch of bs every exec in every industry says to those they are laying off and those left to work harder for less money and security. Hyperlocal is just another term for ‘doing more with less.’ Fact is, the paper’s can’t afford their staffs, maybe even a third of their current cut staffs, so they say they will focus on local news, which basically means they will hire interns like you to work for nothing because they can’t afford anything else.
The content doesn’t matter anymore. It could be the best, most unique and on-target content on the planet and it will not bring back the ad revenue that has fled to web sites like autotrader.com, ebay and craigslist. Keep your heart, but be real — the problem in your newsroom isn’t the reporters and editors around you, it is the sales execs and marketers on the other floors.

Jul 9th, 2008
Danny Sanchez

Michael: “I’m an editor at a medium-sized paper and I’m sending your name around to everyone I know in the business to make sure that you are never hired anywhere.”

Gosh, I’d hate to be left out of that particular note Mr. Powerful-Editor-With-No-Last-Name. It’s Danny Sanchez. D-a-n-n-y S-a-n-c-h-e-z. Orlando Sentinel. Trying to intimidate a young journalist for putting herself out there and sharing her thoughts on the industry is bullying — plain and simple. Shame on you, coward.

And by the way “EMBARRASSED”, Mindy McAdams was my professor at UF, and she’s a good, dedicated instructor who is doing a lot to teach students and practicing professionals how to grasp online journalism.

Ill-conceived threats aside, this has been an insightful discussion.

Jul 9th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

To all who have posted, here is a post from DaSilva that appears elsewhere on her blog: “People in Miami do not like politics as much as people in Washington, D.C. No, I haven’t consulted a survey, and I don’t have a reference to back it up. I don’t need one. It’s common sense.”
If that doesn’t send a chill down your spine, then you’re already six feet under. With almost all major papers going “hyper local” (aka “cheap”) then maybe DaSilva’s lack of common sense will indeed become a fact. With that attitude, DaSilva will no doubt soon become Coats’ top assistant.
My God, who is going to be the watch dog on government, business, the legal system, etc.? Journalism has been AWOL for the last eight years and failed to do its duty. Too many editors have had DaSilva’s myopic vision and short attention span. One day it’s a story about torturing prisoners, the next day it’s about Britney Spears being photographed with her naughty bits on display.
OK, so it’s old school. But a daily blog that cheerleads whatever The Boss said is as much like journalism as a square is like a circle.
I find it ironic in a bile-inducing way that newsroom executives want reporters who question the “truth,” who are skeptical of what public officials say. But when those newsroom executives explain a “new direction” served with a side of buzz words, they’r amazed when their employees call B.S. If newsroom bosses want sheep, then hire sheep.

Jul 10th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

To Mindy McAdams: If you can’t recognize brown nosing and butt kissing then I fear for if your students are receiving any “real world” instruction. If “Jessie” (aka the “lovely and talented” Jessical DaSilva) is one of your prized students then I fear for the future.

Jul 10th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

To Mike Plugh: Two suggestions: Please step away from the thesaurus. And hire someone to edit your posts; you over-write and your posts read like a high school senior’s term paper.

Jul 10th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

To Jo Urnalismismisdead: You wrote, “Reporters are stupid for enabling these conditions. For being professional watchdogs, journalists can’t even figure out how to get decent treatment from the people who sign their checks. “Passion for the craft” is no excuse. A slave who enjoys being a slave is still just, guess what, a slave.”
You have no idea what you’re talking about. Journalists often have to work odd hours and overtime because THAT’S THE JOB. A jounralist can’t always go home at 5 p.m. If a journalist’s 40 hours expires 1 hour before the longer-than-expected City Council meeting ends, the journalist doesn’t clock out. That’s the point: Those “slaves” who care about getting the story have poured their lives into what used to be a noble profession. They’re frustrated that the business is being left to the bean counters, the overmatched executive editors and the Jessica DaSilvas of the world.

Jul 10th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

To Danny Sanchez: The Anonymous Editor who threatened to blackmail DaSilva might have erred by not giving his name and perhaps his idea was too mean-spirited, but he has my support. If I was in a position of hiring, I would have DaSilva on my radar but for all the wrong reasons. And the same goes for you, Mr. D-a-n-n-y S-a-n-c-h-e-z. Orlando Sentinel. As Lou Grant once said, “I hate spunk.”
But fear not, DaSilva and Sanchez. The editors who would think twice before hiring you are disappearing faster than a buyout e-mail can circulate. The brain-dead editors who are taking over will love your write first, think later methods. My advice: make sure to have a lawyer on retainer for those libel lawsuits that are inevitable without second- and third-reads by editors.

Jul 10th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

From Dreaming: “just fyi, janet coats probably makes 250k or more from media general, and her newish husband is director of the tbo website and probably takes home a similar paycheck. so it’s easy for them to ‘fight’ for the company that butters their bread.”
Perhaps DaSilva’s initial blog “It’s Worth Fighting For” would have been met with a little less vitriol had she included some background “facts” such as the exec ed’s salary and marital situation. Oh … yeah, I forgot … it was only a BLOG; IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE CONTENT, BACKGROUND OR CONTEXT. Just the blogger’s top-of-the-head thoughts.

Jul 10th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

Apologies for the first post in my recent series. I had forgotten that I had posted about DaSilva’s post about national political coverage earlier in this on-line version of Gone With The Intern. The second post on this topic should be deleted/ignored.
Gee, an editor would have caught that double post or been able to prevent its publication. Instead, I take full responsibility.

Jul 10th, 2008
Danny Sanchez

Wendell, I don’t necessarily agree with everything in Jessica’s post, nor do I recommend blogging about the workplace. If you were to visit my journalism blog, you’ll see very little mention of anything about the company that employs me.

However, I don’t like to see senior staff bullying younger folks — even if the elder staffer is in the right. That’s not the way to make a point.

Additionally, it has personally pained me to see so many folks losing their jobs. We’ve had it especially hard here in Florida, as I’m sure you know. It’s been extremely upsetting to see so many of my friends kicked out of their jobs. I believe that same anger and sadness is manifesting itself on discussions such as this.

Jul 10th, 2008
AJ

I guess the editor is totally clueless of course you have competition down there. I used to work for the telegraph in NH. And both this newspaper and the telegraph have like the same business model stupity at the uppermanagement levels. Any newspaper laying people off now has missed the internet boat and should have seen this comming a mile away in 1995. I live in the north shore area of massachusetts and if I want my paper I can get a subscription to it all online for 10 bucks a month. As for this Editor announcing lay off’s the day before it must of ot a uneasy feeling to every one working that day. Look what we have gotten from newspapers lately as consumers first of all they shrunk the papers width. they mostly got rid of the stocks in the paper. look at allot of places and they have gotten rid of the newspaper boy. so they toss your paper in your driveway instead of your front porch in many areas. Newspapers could do many things with their web site for one paper I like the Cape Cod times they have a daily video. a quick blerb about the news which is a big seller to me, also papers are selling their subsciption online so you don’t need the paper just your computer to see your paper. you still get the fullpaper but its digitized. If papers are still shooting film to plate still they are in the 1990’s they should all be going direct to plate to go on the press. todays newspapers are trying to union bust. I saw it over at the Telegraph in Nashua NH where they got rid of tehir composing dept by laying them all off. Also being a computer tech when I was there they brought in people from another paper instead of giving people who deserve to be managers the job. I saw the sales dept at the telegraph almost all quit because of someone they brought in. As for the MIS dept I left because they brought someone else in and they bousght server after server and lousy editorial system programs and ad’s program. Here’s a Hint for all of the young people trying to get into Media. Stay away from Radio staions and newpapers, and TV stations. The Low pay is just not worth it, and the arogrant pompus people running the papers and radio stations and tv stations. Are always closed to new ideas. Do this start your own Internet radio staion, or video site, or even do a news web site do it with vision not with the old ways of Bad newspapers, Radio and TV. If I worked ofr that Newspaper I would have walked out and quit and got a job delivering Pizza’s because you will get much better respect.

Jul 10th, 2008
Marc Hershon

Jessica,

I liked getting the inside angle on your editor’s layoff warning meeting. I’ve also enjoyed reading the inane and boneheaded comments by old school journalists that keeping wanting to hold bloggers up to the same standards as journalists. They just don’t get it and will soon, if they’re not already, feel themselves pulled down in the tar pit of newsprint and ink that’s going to catch everyone who isn’t making moves to help forge the new news paradigm. Even sniping at misspellings are the earmarks of a more strident age — these are the same misanthropes who bristle at the language of texting.

In my own blog entries, pretty much all the negative comments aimed at the messenger (and not the message) come from those who boldly post anonymously. These are the same folks who, on public forums, never seem to start topics but delight in tearing into those who do.

As for your future, by the sheer number of comments on this one entry alone, you can probably find yourself some corporate sponsors and bag the whole journalism thing in favor of having your blog go pro.

Jul 10th, 2008
Way of wenal

Just checking to see if Jessica has matured enough to allow another critical post from this end.

It’s entertaining to see the young journos coming in and trying to sound smart by framing the debate as some sort of technology vs. dinosaur argument. And for the people who have learned the word “curmudgeon”: Congratulations on expanding your vocabulary. Now just keep using that word and thinking you’re clever.

One thing we’re learning from all of this: Many young journos are not ready for professional life. And journalism professors must be dropping the ball even more than they were back in the 1990s. Looks like it’s time for some universities to consider dropping their programs if some of the posters here are indicative of the ignorant, clueless young grads who are emerging into the world.

Jul 10th, 2008
Wendell Barnhouse

To Marc Hershon: I clicked your web site. Where’s the funny stuff?

Jul 10th, 2008
Way of wenal

“Where’s the funny stuff?”

Today’s twentysomethings think everything they write or post is funny, just by definition. (Often it’s not. Exhibit A: Large portions of YouTube.)

Jul 10th, 2008
Mike Saunders

M.A. Murdoch said:

–snip–

The prevailing mindset – always spoken as a fact and foregone conclusion — that nearly everybody in America is constantly on the Internet and gets his or her news from that source is an outright lie.
A huge study released this week by the well-respected Pew Charitable Trust research foundation found that 27 percent of Americans DO NOT USE THE INTERNET AT ALL. They don’t have a computer. Or, if they do, they don’t subscribe to any Internet service. That’s more than one-fourth of the people in this country. And in a nation of nearly 300 million, 27 percent is – well, my dear intern, you do the math.
Who serves them? What do they do for their news? I’d be willing to bet they read a newspaper.

– snip –

Since I’ve been in the business nearly as long as you have, including the last 17 years reporting and editing at a major metro daily, and the last seven or so involved in “new” media, I know not to let statistics be used wantonly without proper context.

So, here’s the context, which, as you’ll see, shows that the portion of the population not on the internet is either:

a) soon to shuffle off this mortal coil, and is not a viable source of continuing revenue. (There’s a reason that parts of Florida can be called “God’s Waiting Room.” )
or
b) low-income folks not likely to be attractive to advertisers.

That’s a cold-hearted, clear-eyed assessment of the situation we all face, especially those who forget that the newspaper business is first and foremost a business. Think: when’s the last time a defunct newspaper broke any news?

The cost of producing a newspaper is rising, from the newsprint to the ink to the fuel for the trucks that transport the finished product for the brief stop between front porch and landfill. The number of people buying newspapers is shrinking, for lots of reasons that are thesis fodder for those so inclined to live in the past.

Every newspaper, even the ones still surviving off the fat accumulated in the tech and housing booms, is transforming itself into a leaner, less hierarchical organization. Reporters will take pictures and video. Photographers will shoot video. Writers will capture sound for audio presentations, and so on.

What will copy editors do, now that there’s less paper to produce? They’re being trained on web layout and content management, so that they can edit wire copy and blog posts, and craft pithy headlines — and produce all to the same standards of accuracy and fairness as the dead tree edition.

(Disclaimer: I attended UF as a grad student in the late 90s, a costly and eye-opening adventure in academia. I toook one of Mindy McAdams’ classes but Jessica DaSilva was probably still in Little League. I have not had any contact with either party.)

By embracing the future, DaSilva is just doing her job, and ensuring that other people get to keep theirs for a bit longer. This is a conversation we all should have had in 1994.

***Here’s the actual info from the Pew study, available in PDF form at: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/257/report_display.asp

Roughly one-quarter (27%) of adult Americans are not internet users, and they tend to be
older (the median age is 61) and have lower-incomes than online users (non-internet
users are more than twice as likely as users to live in low-income households). Some
18% of non-internet users have used the internet in the past, but just 10% of non-internet
users say they would be interested in joining the ranks of online users.

When asked why they don’t use the internet:
33% of non-users say they are not interested.
12% say they don’t have access.
9% say it is too difficult or frustrating.
7% say it is too expensive.
7% say it is a waste of time.

Jul 11th, 2008
Mike Plugh

@Mike Saunders Nice comment. I have one minor quibble with what you said. With regard to the 27% of people that don’t use the internet you wrote, “Who serves them? What do they do for their news? I’d be willing to bet they read a newspaper.”

I think you did fine work laying out the research here and citing statistical background for your contention is strong, however you turned to conjecture by betting that they read a newspaper. I bet that some of those 27% read a newspaper, but I’d also bet that more watch TV and at least as many don’t care a lick about news at all.

Our society is not an informed society. It’s a “gut” society in large measure, and that’s why GWB had some appeal. Faith and gut. People hear things with one ear and don’t stop to gather more information about what the deeper context is for that one-eared input. Part of it is education, part of it is culture, and part of it is plain old apathy. Plus, about 1% of the adult population is illiterate and I’d wager that upwards of 5% are barely literate. I’m turning to conjecture here, but you get the idea.

Just an observation.

Jul 12th, 2008
Mike Plugh

Going back and reading some of the comments here, I can’t help but hear them in my head with the voice of Burgess Meredith’s Penguin. Waaah.

Jul 12th, 2008
Happy

Hey, what’s with all the negativity? Jessica, I’m also a journalism student on the brink of graduation, and I say: you do your thing. I applaud your dedication to the field and I’d tell these meanies who comment on your blog to go suck a lemon. You rock, girl! Keep it real!

Jul 15th, 2008
Another Intern

As an intern at another newspaper and a fellow “idealistic” journalism student, I appreciate and agree with a lot of what you say. We have to fight to keep this industry alive, because as a lot of these comments indicate, the current generation isn’t up to the challenge. To those unwilling to change: You are old, out of touch and hopefully next on the chopping block. If you don’t have a solution, or the willingness to find one, you’re part of the problem. I hear they’re hiring in PR, float your family on that.

Jul 15th, 2008
Hilary Lehman

What I’m sure the “idealistic” young journalist means is that the younger generation can lend its idealism to the older, more experienced generation in a cooperative effort that would only save journalism jobs and give both generations greater understanding of the business.

Right?

Jul 15th, 2008
Paige

Great, I can’t wait for you young “Idealistic” journalists to save the business. I’m quite sure you new graduates and grads-to-be are the first ones ever to come up with ideas on how to save it and know how to use a computer and maneuver through the Web. People who have been doing this a lot longer I’m sure will appreciate you taking time away from telling us your every insignificant move in your life on Twitter to save this important business. Good luck!

Jul 15th, 2008
Better Yeti

Look, this whole idea of the Fourth Estate, and of journalists being important because they have access to printing presses is just.. so… nineteenth century. Journalists stopped being relevant ten years ago… and I say this as somebody who used to make his living as a journalist. It’s kind of like how having access to electric guitars and a recording studio gave you a good shot at a music career… in 1968, that is. There really isn’t anything special that journalist do, except go to J-school and figure out how to navigate the media bureaucracy and get access to the gatekeepers of the News Machine… except that the machine and the bureaucracy are collapsing just like the record industry. Journalists are so in love with the idea that they’re somehow special, that they feel, think, perceive so much more deeply than everybody else — I know, because I was fed on those very myths, the tenets of the Fourth Estate. But it’s just not true, as any number of bloggers have demonstrated at this point. Not only will newspapers die, they *should* die — just like horse-drawn ploughs and steam locomotives and vinyl record presses should have died — their time is done; they’ve been relegated to the compost-heap of history. All this high-falutin’ rhetoric about Worth Fighting For et cetera? Only worth fighting for if you’re drunk on the Kool-Aid of the myth of the Fourth Estate. It’s over, baby. News has been wikified. The hyper-recombinant DNA of the Internet will enforce it, 24/7/365. You’ve gotten the wake-up call. Time to evolve or die.

Jul 16th, 2008
Janet Edens

Real name. 25 years as a professional journalist. All aspects. Editor. Reporter. Designer. Blogger. Etc.

I am blown away by what I’ve read here. I feel some pity. It’s hard to swallow when something you dedicated your life to begins to wither and die. Most journalists feel it and a lot of us are angry and scared. But, my God, the condescension and sexism! If the comments above are indication of how rigid and bitter and arrogant we’ve become, of how anxious we are to smash down a young woman who clearly carries a torch for newspapers, then it’s a good thing our structure is being dismantled. A necessary thing.

So, here’s another “you go, girl,” Jessica. Observe and explore and write and blog. Take what criticism is valid, lose the rest and move on. It’s how you learn to be a journalist.

Jul 16th, 2008
Bessemer

Oh geez, not the “fire in the belly” argument again. Doing journalism for free–I mean, for the love of it–is called blogging.

Jul 17th, 2008
Gordon Ovenshine

The whole thing makes me sick. I don’t live in Florida, but my favorite friend was laid off for no reason.

Jul 25th, 2008
enlamnhoalp

Thank you

Aug 2nd, 2008
James Blackman

Know what’s going to happen?

When the whole of the news industry has switched online, leaving no newspapers left - someone, somewhere is going to think…”Wouldn’t it be great if we could have our news in like a…a book form…something that we can carry around with us on trains, after all we don’t want to carry our laptops everywhere…”

And thus the newspaper will be reborn. Reading news online is hellish, most people think the same, and thus will continue to buy newspapers…

A newspaper is one of man’s greatest practical inventions.

Aug 7th, 2008
Chapman

Great post, great insight. An intern? Impressive. I’ve been in the business full time for 32 years, and 10 before that as a stringer. I worked for Janet in Sarasota. She gets it, and her words here are more proof. Those hung up on the old model, or on protecting jobs over journalism, are doing the business and each other a great disservice.

Keep the faith, and keep fighting for your belief.

Nov 22nd, 2008