Occupy Newsrooms

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Let ’em eat cake

NOTE: Newspaper ownership rewards its failed corporate overlords with huge bonuses (like Gannett Chairman Craig Dubow, whose golden parachute totaled $37M+), while stripping newsrooms and leaving the communities dark and silent. How about occupying newsrooms, starting with Gannett Inc.?

“Never a standout in journalism performance, the company strip-mined its newspapers in search of earnings, leaving many communities with far less original, serious reporting. . . .

“Forget about occupying Wall Street; maybe it’s time to start occupying Main Street, a place Gannett has bled dry by offering less and less news while dumping and furloughing journalists in seemingly every quarter. . . .

“No one, least of all me, is suggesting that running a newspaper company is a piece of cake. But the people in the industry who are content to slide people out of the back of the truck until it runs out of gas not only don’t deserve tens of millions in bonuses, they don’t deserve jobs.

“The optics of the bonuses are far worse than the practical impact. Newspapers are asking their employees for shared sacrifice and their digital readers to begin paying. So, lucrative packages won’t cut it. As newspapers all over the country struggle to divine the meaning of the Occupy protests, some of the companies that own them might want to listen closely to see if there is a message there meant for them.”

—David Carr, media writer, “Why Not Occupy Newsrooms?”

The New York Times, Oct. 23, 2010

Image: I GOT MINE . . .
The chief executive of Gannett Inc., Craig Dubow, second from left,
received a $37.1 million severance package despite presiding over
the loss of some 30,000 jobs. Richard Drew/Associated Press

• Editorial Comment: I get it: Without reporters, we wouldn’t know about this. We’d be happier, right?

• Op-Ed: Learn how to think! “Degrees to Everywhere,” The Deseret News, by Edward C. Pease & D. Whitney Smith

Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café
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• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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