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Ex-Gay Community Publisher Portantino Takes Own Life
The UT is reporting on this too. Odd that the paper ignored the man, his community and his paper in life.— December 9, 2010 4:13 p.m.
Gay Paper Suspended, but Sends Money for Back Taxes
San Diego has a politically active and numerically significant gay community. Before the recession the city had three gay weeklies. The only time saw even one at the UT was when the advertising director grimly thumbed through an issue, noting the full-page automotive ads that had flown the coop. It was another of the areas where the UT was significantly out of step with the changing times. For awhile in the ‘90s the UT ran a paid personals ad service. Among the categories were “men seeking women” and “women seeking men.” The UT flatly refused any gay categories and suggested such users use the third category, “just seeking friends.”— August 25, 2010 1:01 p.m.
U-T Axes 34 to 40
Blair’s a great guy. I like him ... BUT does the UT leadership really think that he is the shot in the arm to boost circulation? The UT needs a fangs-bared, no-holds-barred gossip columnist, someone you love to hate. It’s a staggering image: the new high minds at the UT sitting around trying to decide how to revitalize the paper and coming up with (ta da!) ¡¡Tom Blair!! Another bit of irony, with reference to the paeans to the super-talented journalists who got tossed. Can we buy it that the former management of the UT was terribly incompetent and inept … EXCEPT when it came to spotting and recruiting talented journos? Huh?— June 21, 2010 9:54 a.m.
SDNN Was Effervescent Until Drop Dead Day
Patrick Marrinan, Labor Relations Manager at the UT, left last Friday. So did the HR receptionist, who the new folks forced to double as the lobby security guard. The UT HR department now consists of three employees.— June 1, 2010 1:46 p.m.
SDNN Was Effervescent Until Drop Dead Day
It is cruel for the editor to announce publicly that more layoffs are coming, and then make the staff wait all this time. That was questionable management. - - - - - I dunno, Don. Telling people the bald truth and avoiding a false sense of confidence seems like a refreshing chnage. Perhaps it means the end of the UT's previous ways of eternal secrecy and surprise.— June 1, 2010 10:25 a.m.
Surprise: Union-Tribune Solicits Employee Suggestions
Not exactly the sounds made from a top-flight journo. UT: Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin— February 11, 2010 4:21 p.m.
Surprise: Union-Tribune Solicits Employee Suggestions
The 'right' audience and effective sales can boost revenues Jeff Light of Orange Country Register Communications talks about cohesive integration among audience size and engagement, audience quality and sales effectiveness at newspapers. By Lorraine K. Lee | Medill School of Journalism Monday, January 4, 2010 8:49 AM CST Without cohesive integration among audience size and engagement, audience quality and sales effectiveness, local newspaper company revenues could continue to erode, according to Jeff Light, vice president of Interactive at Orange Country Register Communications Inc. “What tends to happen, unfortunately, is you might have a zealous newsroom crank up audience—but revenue doesn’t move and sales go down,” said Light, a presenter at Inland’s 124th Annual Meeting. He charged them thusly: “Please work all the dials!” Though this advice may sound simple, Light said, it isn’t working well because the gap between print and Web is substantial and that is not ideal. “It’s closing in an unhappy way because the print side is losing money,” Light said, while providing a PowerPoint presentation with slides that demonstrated deep declines in print revenue across the industry. “Do not make print the root product for all your content,” he admonished the Inland audience. But then Light assured them that there is money to be made—in providing online content conducive to local areas. He said that local media outlets are missing an opportunity to make money off their share of Internet usage, and that must be fixed. “Of that 24 billion dollars that’s being spent to reach all web users,” said Light, “we represent a tiny slice of that opportunity for advertisers.”— February 11, 2010 4:18 p.m.
Surprise: Union-Tribune Solicits Employee Suggestions
Hey, isn't swearing at people in the workplace illegal? No. There are laws, both state and federal, against creating a hostile work environment. The laws do not and are not intended to create a generally pleasant workplace. "Hostile work environment" means that a group or individual is being given bad treatment based on membership in a legally protected class (race, gender sexual orientation, etc.) Someone who hollers at everyone indiscriminately is just a plain old bad manager. Interestingly, under the Gene Bell regime, Hollering Harry would have been quite rapidly walked off the plank. Mistreated employees are eager for unions to protect them, and Bell did not tolerate a manager who was running things by screaming.— February 10, 2010 4:10 p.m.
Surprise: Union-Tribune Solicits Employee Suggestions
In the late 90s Gene Bell did attempt some genuine “bottom up” management. There were at least three very costly initiatives: the General Electric “WorkOut,” the Partners 2000 groups, and “400/500.” WorkOut, intended to streamline and simplify existing processes and eliminate non-value added work, foundered shortly after a rank-and-file circulation employee publicly upbraided Karin Winner about the lack of effectiveness of the newsroom. Partners 2000, intended to be customer service friendly by amalgamating ad sales, ad artists and credit, effectively went bye-bye when the new CFO realized that advertising folks were now heading up credit functions. 400/500, intended to boost circulation by employee input, was headed by the top graphic designer at the UT. This exec did not score points with Bell. When asked to give an update on 400/500 at the quarterly manager meeting, he instead presented the “dancing baby” animation that was web-hot at the time. The most visible outcome of the 400/500 initiative was the opening of the employee gym.— February 9, 2010 10:27 a.m.
U-T Cites Improvement, May Hire 25 Part-Timers
"The new management, hired by owner Platinum Equity, was critical of prior leadership at the meeting, according to good sources." Don, that line is just too juicy not to be more detailed. Shame on you. You mentioned in an earlier post that you were on the "management" payroll. Not exactly. You were paid as an "exempt" employee. By virtue of being a columnist, as opposed to a reporter, you were exempted from overtime requirements. Some columnists (and the editorial writers) were given access to the underground parking simply because it was determined that their positions merited it. The internal hand-wringing over you, Don, (and no offense) was whether you and similarly situated workers should be (dis)invited to the quarterly off site "Manager's Dialog." The idea was that people with direct reports were to attend so they could give the information to their employees (such as Jim Watters passing the results along to you). At times there were legitimate reasons to retract the invitation, as in the case where a person with direct reports no longer had them. But it took some spine from the next level up to sit down with the affected employee and say, “Sorry. No visit to the Big Hotel with doughnuts and business suits for you.”— January 16, 2010 7:12 a.m.