The story about James Lileks' losing his column in the Strib is a story that two groups of people would care about.
1. Readers who enjoy his work.
2. Journalists who have seen this before.
The first group of mourners is adequately covered by both the Hugh Hewitt link above and this Hot Air post by See Dubya (read Lileks' own thoughts on the event here. Contact the reader's rep here).
It's the second group--journalists--that I thought to post about. As I've said previously (at least, I think I have), I started working for newspapers when I was in high school and continued doing inky wretch work until my mid-30's. I loved (and still do) newspapers with the irrationality of a college girl sleeping with her professor. It doesn't matter how much they hurt you or that you know it will end badly, you just love 'em anyway.
I spent 10 years working for the local major metro daily (the Fort Worth Star-Telegram). I never achieved the lofty titles of reporter or editor, for a lot of big and little reasons, but I played both roles at different points for different reasons. And I loved the fun stuff I got to do (covering a beat, doing concert and movie reviews, handling production for the weekly entertainment guide) in between the boring stuff (answering phones and mail, bleh). In that 10 years, I met and worked with a lot of very talented reporters from the more famous ones (Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Thompson and Tim Madigan) to more local celebrities (Bud Kennedy).
But regardless of the talent pool, there seems to be an almost feudal system within newspapers that causes them to chew up the talent in meaningless pissing matches designed to bring down the big egos necessary to write and edit.
In my experience, this is a uniquely newspaper situation. I've never worked in another business (and I've worked in more than a few) where people who were good at one thing were moved from that job to an entirely unrelated position solely for the purpose of pissing off and punishing the employee (this may not be the problem in Lileks' case, but I smell the stinky, overbearing hand of bad management in the move).
The worst scenario I saw was when a new Sports Editor was brought in. He was Just the Right Man for the Job, according to the top brass; a guy who would Whip the Department into Shape. Unfortunately, this man's idea of improvement was to piss off and demoralize the staff through a series of ridiculous and unnecessary staff changes. Examples included:
1. Reassigning beats to reporters who had no expertise in the new area (such as assigning a basketball reporter to cover hockey or a NFL reporter to cover high school baseball--I'm not making this up).
2. Changing shifts--at the time the Star-Telegram put out a morning paper (which was produced at night) and an evening paper (which was produced during the morning). So, for Sports, there were two shifts: roughly 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. One poor guy got assigned to work from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m.
3. Moving people out of the department--good writers and editors were either reassigned to other departments or voluntarily moved once the writing was on the wall. I actually saw a sports reporter assigned to the Living/Lifestyle section of the paper, a move akin to assigning a pediatrician to a urology clinic; both require expertise but not much of it overlaps.
I don't know if this peculiar mental illness is behind the move of James Lileks from columnist to beat reporter, but it has all the fingerprints of such a case. I also don't know why newspapers seem to work so diligently to piss off the talent that the readers enjoy. With plummeting circulation, you would think the Strib would be trying to find ways to increase circulation, not drive off more subscribers.
UPDATE: Another take on the Lileks demotion, this one served with a big slice of bitterness.
UPDATE x2: The Minneapolis Star-Tribune announces layoffs.
Bowing to the pressures of declining circulation and falling revenue, the Star Tribune Monday announced a sweeping program of buyouts across the company that will send 145 employees out the door, either through buyouts or, if enough people don’t volunteer, layoffs.
The cuts represent 7 percent of the company’s 2,100 positions and include 50 positions out of 383 people in the newsroom and editorial departments.
Publisher Par Ridder delivered the news in a company-wide meeting in which he laid out the increasingly bleak fortunes for daily metro newspapers. The company’s annual advertising and circulation revenue has fallen by $64 million over the last three years. Classified advertising was down 23 percent in the first quarter over last year. If current trends continue, Ridder said, the paper would begin to lose money in a year to 18 months.
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