Newspaper Death March 3.13.09

What's news?

• The New York Times had to sell off a plane to raise some cash. Hell, Hugh Hefner learned that lesson back in 1976 when he sold off the Big Bunny. It only took the NYT 33 years to wise up?

• Our very own Media General is closing their Washington D.C. news bureau. And you know, most Times-Dispatch employees didn't even know there was a bureau until the press release appeared online today. Once again: a communications company exemplifying great employee communications.

• From Editor & Publisher:

The Toledo Newspaper Guild plans to again ask The Blade of Toledo to seek other options before going forward with layoffs that could reach 60 people newspaper-wide.

• And two items from our The Dinosaurs Just Don't Get It Department:

First, from the subcategory Digging Their Heads in the Sand: a lengthy puff piece on the originality-challenged The Newspaper Project, "Newspaper Vets Accentuate the Positive". Good luck with that, newsosaurs. And do you think you could ever conceive of a pun headline that refers to a song that came out sometime after the 1960s? Oh, my bad. Dinosaurs can't get with the times...

And from the Arrogance of Newspapers subcategory:

Columbia Journalism School professor: ‘F*ck new media.’

New York Magazine notes that at Columbia University, one of the nation’s top journalism schools, many professors are advocating a “more significant shift” to new media instruction, with one suggesting that students learn about live-blogging. But they’re up against professors like Ari Goldman, who believe new media is completely irrelevant. In fact, on the first day of his class, “Research and Writing 1,” Goldman told students, “F*ck new media“:

“F*ck new media,” the coordinator of the RW1 program, Ari Goldman, said to his RW1 students on their first day of class, according to one student. Goldman, a former Times reporter and sixteen-year veteran RW1 professor, described new-media training as “playing with toys,” according to another student, and characterized the digital movement as “an experimentation in gadgetry.”

“This is like saying that writing books is an experiment in playing with printing presses,” writes [Matt] Yglesias [of ThinkProgress.org].

From ThinkProgress.org (here's the permalink)


Stay tuned, gentle readers. The fun ain't over yet . . .