[abb]

GONE WITH THE WIND - 2007

"There was a land of Publishers and Editors called the Newspaper Business... Here in this pretty world Journalism took its last bow... Here was the last ever to be seen of Reporters and their Enablers, of Anonymous Sources and of Stringers... Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization Gone With the Wind..."

With apologies to Margaret Mitchell...

Oh, fiddlededee!

[abb]

Ping

[CDHart]

bttt

[Clioman]

So, do the Strib’s grand poobahs wear Arrow shirts?

[Tribune7]

In the meantime, Lileks has been buried in suggestions for what he should do next with his career, most of them involving signing on to some other publication.

He should quit the Strib. Keep the blog and try to sell advertising on it. I bet you he could get sales reps to work straight commission.

I also bet he wouldn't have a problem getting financing to cover the start up costs -- which really should not be that much.

Matt Drudge is a very rich man.

[Rummyfan]

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune should simply let its employees go work at home or at Starbucks, sell off its building and printing plant, and use the resulting revenues to buy editorial space on Lileks.com.

Excellent!

[Grampa Dave]

This toon from Pookie18's daily post of toons, sums up the reality of why and how the dinosaur fishwraps are killing themselves.

[Milhous]

From a couple days ago:

May 04, 2007
Strib Bloodletting Begins Anew. Ridder Still Secure as Publisher.

Thursday afternoon at the Star Tribune saw the paper's four metro columnists, Doug Grow, Nick Coleman, Katherine Kersten and Cheryl "CJ" Johnson called in to separate meetings with editors Nancy Barnes and Scott Gillespie and told, in so many words, that the paper was looking to scale back the number of columnists and would any of them care to raise their hands and volunteer for reassignment to the paper's suddenly thin -- and getting thinner -- ranks of street-level reporters?

There were, as far as I can tell, no immediate takers. Later it was learned that quasi-metro columnist, James Lileks, was also given the same message.

This sort of scale-back/down-sizing/gutting has been anticipated ever since the new owners, Avista Capital Partners took over and after the round of voluntary buy-outs that clipped 24 positions from the payroll two months ago. Widespread assumption in the Strib newsroom is that fewer columnists will soon be matched with fewer theater critics, fewer film critics and perhaps -- all though this is very hard to imagine -- fewer sports reporters. (Veteran NBA reporter, Steve Aschburner, has already left the paper.)

Meanwhile, newly-arrived publisher, Par Ridder, the target of a much-publicized lawsuit accusing him essentially of industrial espionage, remains secure in his position.