Register-Star Management Speaks
Roger Coleman, publisher of the Register-Star, and Theresa Hyland, executive editor, finally comment on the firing of Tom Casey and the subsequent resignations of three more staff members, and Sam Pratt comments on their statement.
There is a crisis at the Register-Star but the publisher and executive editor do not tell readers why a reporter was fired nor mention that the city editor and other reporters walked out. Instead, Coleman and Hyland get pissy. The letter was the equivalent of a 13 year old putting locks on his or her bedroom door to keep the adults out. Wow. Stunning.
ReplyDeleteThat's it exactly, Ms. Stone.
ReplyDeleteBut while preparing my own protest letter to the newspaper's owners (as I trust others are doing), I'm wondering what the following words of one of the Johnsons can possibly mean, and whether the actions and rationalizations of Coleman and Hyland aren't totally in line with the Johnson family philosophy/business plan?
John B. Johnson, who runs a division of Johnson Newspaper Corp., the Northern NY Newspaper Corp., praises managers who are "creative, operationally disciplined, and can be strategic."
"The core strength of a news organization is its content gathering and its content creation. Now how that content gets disseminated is a shifting marketplace."
"What we're finding ... is that people like to hold onto information and not get it out."
http://www.whoneedsnewspapers.org/np_interviews.php?npId=nywdt&ivId=nywdt01
The way I'd have understood the above statements a week ago is different than how I think of them now.
(p.s. The Register Star didn't publish my comment following the online statement by Coleman and Hyland, among the 6 comments now posted. Did anyone else have this problem?)