Posted on 01/13/2006 1:05:26 AM PST by raccoonradio
The Boston Globe is going through its biggest shake-up in 30 years. What will it mean for the paper, the editor, the remaining staff, and the city itself?
There were more lumps of coal than holiday cheer at 135 Morrissey Boulevard this Christmas season.
The invitation to the Boston Globe’s December 8 "Combination Christmas Party/Survivor Celebration" included the gallows-humor header: "Do We Ever Need a Party!" Editor Marty Baron’s year-end congratulatory e-mail opened with its own somber greeting: "I’m tempted, probably like many of you, to say good riddance to 2005."
The proximate reason for the Yuletide pall was the wrenching round of company-mandated buyouts that claimed 32 newsroom jobs and ended the Boston Globe careers of some of the paper’s most identifiable bylines. As the year wound down, life at the Globe was marked by a relentless succession of bittersweet going-away parties for departing colleagues.
The editorial reductions struck hardest in Living/Arts — the features and arts section — claiming four critics, and the 25-year-old Life at Home section. The National department — which included an African-American editor, a roving reporter, and a New York–based staffer — was dismantled as well, raising doubts about the ambition and reach of a shrunken Globe.
"There’s a shock to the system anytime you have to do anything like this," says Globe publisher Richard Gilman.
But the visceral shock of the buyouts was compounded by deeply rooted fears at New England’s most powerful media outlet. Those fears were magnified because the Globe had fallen victim to the classic ills of the modern media world: cuts dictated by the out-of-town conglomerate that owns one of Boston’s distinguishing institutions at a time when the newspaper business is hemorrhaging jobs, circulation, and self-confidence,
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonphoenix.com ...
>>"I think the concern triggered by Ken’s departure is there are only a handful of editors of color. Despite a long-stated commitment on this issue, we appear to be losing ground," says Adrian Walker"
Editors of color? Someone who edits color? :)
They do have Jeff Jacoby and the conservative comic strips Mallard Fillmore and Prickly City (and even the occasional right-leaning letter to the editor) but otherwise, it's liberal media to the max.
Other papers nationwide going through similar cutbacks. People get their news from other sources these days, like online of course.
ahhhhhh, dats a real shame.
I say send them a jar of Vaseline. :)
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