From the Rose Law Group Reporter Growlery
By Phil Riske. managing editor
The Arizona Republic used to be a kick-ass newspaper, with crusty dogged editors such as Pat Murphy and dark parking garage reporters such as Don Bolles, who gave his life for journalistic investigations.
Since the hey days of the ‘70s-‘80s in Phoenix of The Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette— lord knows this column has cried out loud about the decay in newspaper journalism — subscribers have read more and more technobabble about various newspaper “digital platforms” designed to take advantage of the Internet and compete with TV’s 24/7, feed the beast immediacy.
For more than a decade now, newspaper reporters have been spending most of their time mounted on their platforms doing double, even triple, duty as scribes, photographers and anchors of video stories, the efficiency of such could be questioned, but what are you going to do when newsroom staffs have shrunk like pure cotton in hot water.
Make no mistake, newspaper platform diving is pumping out volumes of stories—stories about fast food, Hollywood sins, which grade school pupils have the fewest freckles east of the Mississippi, and the latest evidence showing Walmart plans two large stores at the North Pole.
What’s next?
Veteran columnists, reporters, editors and editorial staff at The Republic
have until Oct. 12 to decide on a voluntary buyout offered by letter this week. It offers two weeks’ pay for every year of service for those with 25 years or more with parent company Gannett.
“The Early Retirement Opportunity Program also provides the company flexibility to reinvest in the key components of our three-year plan and better align our structure to become a next generation media company,” Gannett official Bob Dickey wrote in a letter to employees.
“Taking this action provides a benefit to employees who wish to retire while allowing us to remain focused on operating as one company, providing exceptional, engaging content tailored to our readers’ interests and tastes,” the letter said.
I must interject: “Readers’ interests and tastes” are those of a public groomed by media themselves for instant gratification, not-too-heavy-on detail news consumption.
“We also will continue to lead.” Dickey said, “with digital, rapidly seizing the many opportunities presented by new and emerging technologies. And, importantly, we are working hard on ways to reinvest in our employees and . . . a New Gannett and a new future.”
We hope the journalists with 15-25 or more years at The Arizona Republic meet at the corner pub and decide reject the buyout offer to memorialize all the solid work that took place during the Murphy-Bolles era.
Sadly, local newspaper journalism is slowly dying. Film at 10.
