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Union-Tribune is up for sale, company tells employees
It's interesting that the UT Human Resources Department, always top heavy with management at $100K+ salaries, has not been slashed at all. It continues on, with a useless "training" staff and employee relations folk tasked with spying on workers to sniff out union lovers. HR top lady Bobbie Espinosa still has her personal assistant, with whom she confers about make-up and hair styles for most of the day. This kind of HR grandiose was fine back in the late ‘90s, when money was flowing in. But with all the layoffs within the organization it’s odd that the HR per capita ratio has not been looked at.— July 27, 2008 7:40 a.m.
Union-Tribune is up for sale, company tells employees
This would be an opportune moment for the forlorn UT employees to find union representation again.— July 26, 2008 3:32 p.m.
Union-Tribune is up for sale, company tells employees
Forget Aguirre. Forget Frye. The editorial board peccadillos have nothing to do with the UT’s collapse. The paper’s great and unpardonable sin is that it is boring. For years, smart people in circulation pestered Lo Jolla doyenne Karin Winner to put something more marketable on the front page. They were met with blank stares. Winner was convinced, somehow, that she was running a clone of the Wall Street Journal or New York Times. People can get the national news anywhere … and do. The smarter UT money would have been a throwback to old-school, intensely local journalism. Sleazy, juicy local divorce? We’re on it! Lurid local crime? We’ve got big typeface ready! You took a pic of a pretty girl or beefy guy on the beach?! Stop the presses!! US president resigns? Toss it on A-18. Another laugh came back in 2000 or so, when I-Dream-of Genie Bellboy initiated his spectacularly unsuccessful 400/500 campaign. Remember that nonsense? He invited employees throughout the UT to weigh in on how to boost the circulation to 400,000 on weekdays and 500,000 on Sundays. One of the themes of the employee feedback was that the paper was not “local” enough – but that local did not mean simply covering politicians. What were the common, ordinary folks doing? And not the occasional puff-piece on someone who got a crack in the sidewalk repaired. Employees tactfully pointed out that no one was going to pick up the paper to read the bland Neil Morgan or the insipid Diane Bell. They were not, obviously, “must reads.” Someone had the audacity to say that the paper should recruit Nicole Murray-Ramirez, a fixture columnist of the local gay papers. Love his column or hate it, people would read it. Karin moaned. So 400/500 came to an end. Its major contribution was that the old color lab was converted to an employee gymnasium. And, of course, the gym was available only to the non-union employees, as the silly folk who had representation were told that the management could not reach an agreement with the union to use it.— July 26, 2008 7 a.m.
Union-Tribune is up for sale, company tells employees
Newsdoll Karin Winner, editor of the UT, should polish up her resume. I'll bet a lot of major metro papers would demand a talent like that!— July 24, 2008 7:28 p.m.
Union-Tribune is up for sale, company tells employees
Helen Copley held on to the paper from Jim Copley’s death o0n Saturday, October 6, 1973 to her own on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 . .. that’s 30 years, 10 months, 20 days. Her son, David, has held it for 3 years, 10 months, 29 days from her death to it being placed up for grabs today.— July 24, 2008 6:45 p.m.
Amid losses, newspapers take on debt
Speaking of the Olympics, remember four years ago when newsdoll Karin Winner decided to blow a buncha bucks to send reporters to Australia? Everyone in the UT (except la Winner and the lucky few travelers) were shaking their heads. It was well understood the organization that this was a unvarnished junket and would do zero to boost the paper's circulation and prestige. Speaking of a lack of prestige, around the same time, head page designer Robert York subbed for Winner at one of the quarterly management round-ups. When asked why the UT did not get a Pulitzer nod for its coverage of the local fires York screeched (yes, screeched) "Because the Pulitzer judges got it WRONG!" I think the clown honestly thought the room would erupt in wild cheers, hilarity and foot stomping. Instead the group responded with a sad and unsurprised silence.— July 9, 2008 3:45 p.m.
With $6 Million Gift, David Copley Endows UCLA Center for Costume Design
Of course, no one is top management at the UT can even admit to being embarassed by the dilettantish Mr. Copley. Hey, it's his money. One would think, though, that at least one advisor would counsel making this donation anonymously. It's pure bad taste, donating $6 million to such an inconsequential area of study while laid off employees are being denied unemployment and his paper is a journalistic laughingstock.— June 27, 2008 10:41 a.m.
With $6 Million Gift, David Copley Endows UCLA Center for Costume Design
LOL! Maybe they can whip up something to make him look thin! I guess UCLA does not have a journalism school ... Anyway, this little piece is bound to go over big at the UT where management salaries are frozen and people are waiting for the next layoff.— June 26, 2008 4:47 p.m.
Yes We Cannes! The Yacht That Tells a Lacht -- Everything, Actually -- About Copley Newspapers
Isn't Gerald Warren the editor who called a meeting of the entire newsroom to proclaim David Copley's heterosexuality?— June 19, 2008 10:47 a.m.
Yes We Cannes! The Yacht That Tells a Lacht -- Everything, Actually -- About Copley Newspapers
Jim Copley's biography was published in 1964. "It's one of those vanity books," observed his brother Bill. Written by a sycophantic Copley executive, its 347 minutiae-filled pages chronicle everything from Copley's childhood illnesses to the recipe of his favorite cocktail (a personal concoction called "Happy Daze"). Is it a coincidence that apdopted son David named his yacht "Happy Days"?— June 19, 2008 10:22 a.m.