San Diego Hotel Figures Perk Up

I've been waiting for this story to break, because now it's only a matter of time before . . . those carpetbagger bedbugs invade!
— February 8, 2011 9:46 p.m.

Who'll Buy LA Times? Platinum? More Likely Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch -- the original "Crocodile" Dundee. Scorpion on the barbie, anyone? As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Murdoch belongs in the Media Hall of Shame. The British government announced its draconian defunding (dismantling) of higher education and UK social welfare programs a few weeks ago, and shortly afterward Mr. Murdoch held a news conference to wholeheartedly endorse the plans. He's very, very scary.
— December 2, 2010 5:16 p.m.

Union-Tribune Circulation Continues Falling; North County Times Edges Up

Don, I believe I could make a reasonable case that readership and circulation increases would be possible with that strategy, but I can't spend the time on it right now. I also experienced the "darts" phenomenon when I outed myself as a less-than-enthusiastic supporter of editorial management during an in-house management consulting exercise. What can you do? They hired talented individuals and then they did their best to silence and ignore them. The buck stopped with Helen and David, and they had the power to change the outcome, but probably not the vision.
— October 26, 2010 7:43 a.m.

Union-Tribune Circulation Continues Falling; North County Times Edges Up

Wow -- "400/500" -- those "hairy, audacious goals" for U-T circulation improvement seem even more outlandish nearly a decade later. I still believe that the Union-Tribune's and Copley's management primed themselves for catastrophe a couple of decades before the 2008-2009 free fall of the global economy. Don, I think hyper-local and convergent media strategies are great for pubs like the SD Reader, but a disaster for a major metro daily. If the U-T had aggressively pursued a "hyper-global" investigative news strategy, especially with its relatively easy access to all of Asia and the Pacific Rim, they could have carved out an important niche in news reporting, perhaps even repurposed the Copley News Service. I have to say again -- what a waste of good, dedicated, talented people, and of invested capital!
— October 25, 2010 8:18 p.m.

Tourism Up Moderately

Speaking of caterpillars, if tourism does pick up, the result will be a bedbug pandemic in the U.S. and worldwide that will dwarf recent epidemics of head lice. Bedbugs are an equal-opportunity nightmare coming to a bed near you.
— September 25, 2010 5:16 a.m.

U-T Axes 34 to 40

Regarding greenhorn journalists and online copy editing standards, here is what I am seeing: apparently, it doesn't matter any more. Check out the home pages of many of the leading media outlets, ABCNEWS.COM, CBSNEWS.COM, BOSTON.COM (the Boston Globe), even UNIONLEADER.COM, the newspaper of record for the state of New Hampshire, to name a few. You will see numerous typos, spelling and grammatical errors, missing words and phrases, sentences that mysteriously trail off to nowhere, and stories that lack continuity and/or coherence. I recently submitted a copy editing correction via the Comments section of the UNIONLEADER.COM website. My comment never appeared, although the correction was made. As I was re-reading the story, I found another error that I hadn't noticed before and submitted another correction. Again, the comment did not appear but the change was made. As I read the story for the third time -- sure enough -- a new typo appeared out of the blue. What I finally figured out was that the online editor was having a little fun at the expense of me, the reader. I considered sending a letter to Publisher Joe McQuaid to bring it to his attention, but then I decided that he probably wouldn't care. Exploiting the public is a venerable tradition at his newspaper. The NY Times and Wall Street Journal still make an effort. Other than that, copy editing standards have been abandoned. In a world of instant and text messaging where shortcuts and shorthand communications abound, standards that once were the hallmark of journalistic credibility have lost their market value.
— June 22, 2010 9:19 a.m.

Union-Tribune to Shrink Width of Paper

The Union-Tribune continues to exceed expectations in all facets of its operation as the incredible shrinking newspaper. "Web Width Reduction R Us" -- perhaps they can figure out a way to print a fully gate-folded edition. They can call it "the little newspaper that could." Don, although I am a lifelong technogeekess, I don't believe the iPad or similar platforms will rescue the print news media. I don't believe tweeting and facebooking and convergence will rescue the print news media. I do have some ideas about how newspapers can rebuild, and they coincide with your comments above concerning a paucity of journalists today with passion, guts and a zeal to reform the world. I am writing a book -- the working title is "Newspaper CEOs and the idiots who work with (and for) them." Newspaper CEOs and publishers have only themselves to blame for the current decline. They screwed up, and we, the readership, are the worse for it.
— May 15, 2010 10:01 a.m.

U-T Names Online Specialist as Editor

My guess is that there's still a lot of interest in the fate of the Union-Tribune. However, my reaction to the selection of Jeff Light as Karin Winner's replacement? Ho-hum. If I can use a historical analogy, it would be like the King of France appointing his plumber -- instead of Samuel Champlain -- to lead the exploration and settlement of the new world. Platinum Equity principal Louis Samson might understand why I say this. Don, please keep posting these blog entries. Although I don't always feel moved to comment, I continue to follow this story with keen interest.
— February 14, 2010 9:46 a.m.

Memory -- er, uh -- Lapses at the Union-Tribune

Comment on post #57. In this instance, it looks like the online readers are doing the Quality Assurance (QA) work "to get the bugs out" for the U-T. That saves time and money for the newspaper and for any vendors involved, and it takes advantage of an army of unwitting and occasionally willing volunteer testers. Fair enough, but I don't believe it's necessary for a website rollout of any magnitude to always have problems. From my professional experience, it's just a matter of how much money the U-T wanted to throw at the project before debuting it to the public.
— November 4, 2009 2:52 p.m.

Beware Buying Biotech on Basis of Ballyhoo

Perhaps people prefer parody to Proust. Best bet? -- Bauder's bylines.
— October 21, 2009 6:13 p.m.