Here ya go.
Posted on 05/08/2018 12:56:06 PM PDT by Red Badger
As employees from the paper protest against massive cuts to the newsroom and top editors resign, staffers tell The Daily Beast, ‘This is chaos.’
====================================================================================
It seems odd that they’re fighting for the right to speak at a place called The Lipstick Building.
Today, 150 journalists from the Denver Post, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and the Mercury News, and 49 other smaller papers who are accustomed to reporting the news will become the news, as they protest the owner of their papers in what some have called “a fight for their lives.” Alden Global Capital has been surprisingly silent about its own employees calling it out for alleged “predatory business practices.”
Alden, which did not respond to The Beast’s attempts for an interview, is a hedge fund which has been demanding staff cuts to its papers around the country in order to keep healthy profits rolling in. According to reports, the operating margin for Digital First Media, which is controlled by Alden, is 17 percent.
The rally was organized and funded by the Newspaper Guild under the umbrella of the Communication Workers of America—a Hail-Mary by print reporters and photographers who have traveled to New York City from as far away as California, Minnesota, Michigan and Colorado to get the company that pays their salaries to pay attention. In their hands, an 11,000 signature petition asking Alden to invest or sell.
“We’re taking the message to Alden Global’s front door. They won’t reach out to us, so we’re going to go to them,” says Noelle Phillips, police reporter and vice chair of the Denver News Guild.” Phillips acknowledges that her public outbursts could come at the cost of her job, but what has she got to lose with such an uncertain future? “They need to share some of those profits... Feed them back into their newspapers and if they can’t do that, then they should let go of their newspapers.”
Phillips’ dissension was echoed by her colleague, Denver Post reporter John Ingold, who tweeted Monday: “The corporate owners of @denverpost have censored our pages and created an untenable climate of fear and intimidation in our newsroom. They must change course or sell.”
A look at the recent history of the Denver Post provides a good example of what life was like before Alden. A decade ago, the Post’s newsroom employed 310 people. Alden bought the paper in 2011. By this February, the Denver Post lost 30 percent of its newsroom to layoffs, leaving a staff of around 70 people.
What has followed at Denver’s only city newspaper is a jawdropping retreat of its leadership. It’s a movement which has become known as The Denver Post Rebellion.
On Friday night, two senior editors stepped down. Phones lit up as the news hit. One young digital reporter, who wished not to be identified for fear of reprisal, confided to The Daily Beast: “I’ve got to find another job. This is chaos.”
Things soon got worse. Within an hour, Dean Singleton, the paper’s well-respected chairman, who sits on the editorial board, also resigned, telling a local weekly, “It’s like watching your mother or father go into hospice.”
Those high-powered resignations followed the May 3rd departure of Chuck Plunkett, the fearless editorial page editor who, amazingly, survived the now-infamous column, “As Vultures Circle,” criticizing budget and staff cuts,
But he was shut down when he tried to buck Alden a second time with a new controversial editorial piece. This one slammed Alden after the dismissal of an editor at the Boulder Daily Camera who had published a scathing critique about the owners on a personal blog after Alden refused to publish it in the Camera. In an article for Rolling Stone on Monday, Plunkett appealed to the public to fight for the future of journalism, warning that if they don’t, the "rotting bones of our paper will be scattered over the high desert much sooner than feared.”
Reader response to Plunkett’s article was mixed—one person lamented, “Without a strong media, our democratic experiment will not succeed, and we need owners of papers who care about that, not about shareholders.” Another agreed, “No city the size of Denver should lose its only newspaper.” But others applauded the Post’s potential demise, noting, “to see a leftist propaganda rag like the Denver Post slowly collapse is a pleasure. Good riddance,” and “The Post can go the way of the Dodo.”
The reporters who traveled thousands of miles to New York to protest today are fine with being outed.
“The risk to our jobs is censorship and preservation of our newspaper. We’re here to defend journalism,” says Denver Post breaking news reporter Elizabeth Hernandez. Hernandez was an intern in 2014, hired in 2015, laid off the next year, only to be hired back early this year just three weeks before Alden gutted the newsroom. She survived that cut, but it’s lonely these days. “I’m the only reporter in the building on Saturdays. “It’s an impossible task to do those things well. I feel like I’m drowning in that sense,” she said.
The Denver Post is now reportedly left with only one person on the opinion page, who is on maternity leave; thus, Phillips and Hernandez do not know who their bosses will be when they return to work this week.
Besides the editors, two sports reporters left recently. Reporters don’t even know how many people still work in the newsroom, they said, because the remaining bosses they’ve asked say they’re not allowed to tell them.
They are not following that example. Secrecy is not their beat.
“We are not going to shut up,” says Phillips. “ Alden, we’re coming to see ya. We hope you answer the door.”
It’s their job to shine a light, even if it’s on themselves.
May the same fate befall every liberal fishwrap.
Our local rag is a typical leftist-progressive newspaper. I hope it goes bankrupt.
The only problem is that while the sources of national news and opinion abound, the reliable, and readable, sources of local news are nearly non-extant.
How’s that paywall working out for you?
In the Era of FusionGPS, where other entities are paid to write favorable viewpoint write “News” stories, while pay “reporters” under the table to distribute it, and outlets like HuffPo where “Journalists” gladly submit stories for FREE, and the Editorial Staff are largely paid by political sources outside the Company (like Soros), why should a Newspaper PAY for non-Printing/Delivery staff anymore??
The Dinosaur Lamestream Media Deathwatch continues!
Now where’s my popcorn?
The notion of a news & opinion rag, bucking the rightful owners is insane.
I would advise the owners to recruit new employees, that will reflect “fair & balanced” journalism.
Both the print and electronic editions are supported by advertising, not by reader subscriptions to read content.
These people are so full of their own self-importance, they have lost their minds................
Moveable type replaced the calligraphers. Newspapers replaced the heralds and the town criers. Life went on. The newspaper as we knew it is dead and will not come back. The decisions of journalists to abandon the principles of their profession and become partisan activists is hastening their doom. A pox on them all.
Something will emerge to replace the print news and my guess is that the current electronic versions with the chaos of their web pages including excessive intrusion of advertising will be a short lived phenomena.
Want Ads
Honey Cone
Wanted, young man single and free
Experience in love preferred, but will accept a young trainee
Oh I’m gonna put it in the want ads, I need a love that’s true
Gonna put it in the want ads, my man and I are through
At home I find myself, lost and all alone
My man is playing the field, the thrill is gone
He stays out all night, says he’s with the boys
But lipstick on his collar, perfume on it too
Tells me he’s been lying, tell ya what I’m gonna do
I’m gonna put it in the want ads, this girl’s in misery
Gonna put it in the want ads, somebody rescue me
I spend my nights alone, cryin’ bitter tears
Although I cry aloud, nobody really hears
And when I need him most, he’s never by my side
He’s either playing cards, or drinking at the bar
He thinks that I’m a fool, I’m going to the evening news
Gonna put it in the want ads, I need somebody new
Gonna put it in the want ads, my man and I are through
Extra extra, read all about it, wanted, young man single and free
Experience in love preferred, but will accept a young trainee
Extra extra, read all about it, wanted, young man single and free
Experience in love preferred, but will accept a young trainee
Oh I’m gonna put it in the want ads, I need somebody new
Gonna put it in the want ads, my man and I are through
Gonna put it in the want ads, this girl’s in misery
Gonna put it in the want ads, please somebody rescue me
Lipstick on his collar, perfume on it too
Tells me he’s been lying, I’m going to the evening new
Gonna put it in the want ads, I need somebody new
Gonna put it in the want ads, my man and I are through
Gonna put it in the want ads, this girl’s in misery
Gonna put it in the want ads, please somebody rescue me
Songwriters: Barney Perkins / General N. Johnson / Gregory S. Perry
Want Ads lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
“The Denver Post Is in Full-On Rebellion Against Its Hedge Fund Master ... As employees from the paper protest against massive cuts to the newsroom and top editors resign, staffers tell The Daily Beast, ‘This is chaos.’”
yeah, creating chaos will definitely learn ‘em ... sounds to me like a good way to finish off the business so NO one will employed ... which totally suits me anyway:
Right now, The Denver Post is little more than another carbon copy outlet for the lies and rumors of “anonymous sources” published by the major media. Multiple unbiased studies have shown that over 93% of the stories the major media publishes about President Trump are negative, and The Denver Post easily reflects that proportion with their editorials and their “news”, which consists mostly of AP propaganda and rumors from anonymous sources.
I suppose The Denver Post could try a radical experiment of reporting ACTUAL news instead of the tsunami of rumors initiated from the Washington Post, CNN, Buzzfeed, et. al., AND give equal space to both sides, but I doubt they ever will because it’s clear that The Denver Post would rather sail off into oblivion carrying water for the Democrats and the anti-Trumpers than survive as a going concern.
The leftist fake stream media in this country are nothing more than the publicity arm of the “progressive”, leftist Democrat Party and no longer serve a useful purpose, and therefore deserve to die. As it is, The Denver Post deserves to die as well. At this point, I see no reason why I should pay my hard-earned money for daily lies delivered to my doorstep when I can get all the lies I want for free from the Internet.
“Phillips’ dissension was echoed by her colleague, Denver Post reporter John Ingold, who tweeted Monday: “The corporate owners of @denverpost have censored our pages and created an untenable climate of fear and intimidation in our newsroom. They must change course or sell.””
Hey, John, if you don’t like where you work you COULD go and try and find another job, you know, instead of demanding that your employer change or sell ... that’s what I always had to do ... but, hey, maybe you’re “special” because you’re a “journalist” ...
“Dean Singleton, the paper’s well-respected chairman”
gosh, the very same “well-respected” Dean Singleton who was forced to sell his bankrupt mini-media “empire”, MediaNews, Group to the Aldens ...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Dean+Singleton+bankrupt&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b
“Those high-powered resignations followed the May 3rd departure of Chuck Plunkett, the fearless editorial page editor who, amazingly, survived the now-infamous column, “As Vultures Circle,” criticizing budget and staff cuts”
looks like Chuck didn’t survive that long after he attacked his employer, less than 3 weeks ...
“In an article for Rolling Stone on Monday, Plunkett appealed to the public to fight for the future of journalism, warning that if they don’t, the “rotting bones of our paper will be scattered over the high desert much sooner than feared.”
Uh, right, Chuck, the very same public that have been fleeing the uber-leftist Alden Colorado papers in droves for years. I guess Chuck conveniently forgets that the only print subscribers left are in nursing homes and i don’t think have much fight left in ‘em ... the rest of us, of course, are CHEERING “sooner than feared” rotting bones scattering ...
They say it like it's a bad thing.
Daddy, what are the want ads?
Why not just hire journalism majors only from schools like Hillsdale College and Pepperdine U? Then maybe we’ll see for the first time a major daily that reports on the Uranium One scandal, or how Robert Mueller enabled the Boston Marathon bombing by rejecting Israeli and Russia intelligence naming Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an “imminent threat.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.