It turns out that Media General laid off another 80 people this week, including 18 from the Tampa Tribune newsroom.
That newspapers are in dire straits is not news. Reporters are losing jobs across the nation as they trim the fat. But our local daily is completely cutting out all of the marble and cleaving the meat – leaving us with no flavor and little substance.
As Luis Viera points out in a letter to Trib editors, they have effectively chopped the “Tampa” from the Tribune:
The latest layoffs by the Tampa Tribune call into question just what kind of institution this newspaper wants to be. The names of the people terminated by this paper – men and women like Daniel Ruth, Rosemary Goudreau and Joe Brown – are not only the Tribune, but they are, frankly, Tampa. To the extent that the Tribune wanted to speak to the people of this city, it would have done so through thoughtful, talented and original people like this.
Along with Daniel Ruth, Rosemary Goudreau and Joe Brown, take a look at the name recognition of some of the others no longer with the newspaper:
All of these people are Tampa.
Take a look at the TBO Opinion page. They are down to THREE faces for the paper – Steve Otto, Martin Fennelly, and Tom Jackson (Pasco). Now that Joe Brown is gone, would you recognize anyone on the editorial board? Even their once ballyhooed community columnists have not written since August.
And to top all that off, here is the quote from executive editor Janet Coats:
“We have tried to make these cuts so the results are not so obvious to the reader.”
Janet, that is a sick joke to your former employees, and a downright insult to your readers.
Upon the Tribune’s redesign in October, Bob Ross said good buy to “a dying friend.” It’s time to pull the plug on Media General, and let someone else try to clean up this mess.
Re/Creating Tampa - Round-up
1 year ago
[...] Sticks of Fire Tommy takes a look at the incredible shrinking Tampa Tribune. Should we start taking bets on how long before the Trib [...]
mike
1 year ago
“Reporters are losing jobs across the nation as they trim the fat.”
I agree entirely with everything you wrote with the minor exception of the above.
There is/was no “fat” left at the Tribune to cut.
What Media General did the other day was remove ALMOST all of what remained of the HEART of this now sorry rag.
This “death of a thousand cuts” is cruel and they are misleading those who remain at the paper.
MG should just come clean with those who are left and are hanging on by their fingernails.
Be honest, MG, and tell these folks a shutdown is inevitable and they need to get moving and look for work elsewhere.
And let them do it on company time! Why not? The paper can’t get much worse!
MG should RIGHT NOW be helping these folks find work.
The “Big Dogs” at the Trib should be working their phones trying to find work for people, those they canned and those soon to be canned!!!
They SHOULD BE calling some of their fat cat business owner buddies and telling them, “We have a hell of a wordsmith/writer/editor, graphic artist/designer and so on that you will be lucky to have. You really should take a look at her/him.”
This would be the right thing to do. Will it be done? Of course not. It’s turned into “every man for himself” at this rapidly sinking ship and even the Big Dogs are scrambling for new places to lay down their food bowls.
Ed
1 year ago
In my opinion the goal is not the heart and soul of a paper but rather the sale of a paper. They are cleaning up the books, shaking it down to bone becusae they want to sell it, maybe off load it woulbe a better term. Not sure who would buy it, or could in this market.
It will sold or it will be sold off in pieces in the short term. At least that is my expectation. Hence the battle for the heart and soul of the paper is no longer an issue.
Clyde
1 year ago
I suggest we all stop wasting our time. The Tribune has made itself irrelevant and has entered a death spiral. There is real opportunity for small community newspapers to pick up the slack.
John
1 year ago
Mike, while I agree that the Trib is cutting solid muscle instead of fat now… I don’t agree “Shutdown is inevitable”.
Don’t think of the Tampa Tribune as one property, because it’s not. It’s part of what was supposed to be innovative and cutting edge — one tier of a three tier attack from the news media. WFLA, TBO and the Tribune are all tied together. If the Tribune is going to cease operations, the other two properties suffer horribly because of it.
MG — Mother Corporate who values stock price more than it’s product — ought to have the media center on the market, and should have had this in effect since 2006 — before the economy went tits up. The Media Center is MG’s only big market property. it’s a small market news institution in every other instance.
But seeing that MG didn’t do that, they are attemtping to retain the status quo of tradition instead of evolving and innovating. TBO.com has remained the same for too long, and is far too closed off and limited / small scoped in it’s delivery to ever be profitable. TBO is supposed to be an extension of the Tribune and WFLA. Now they want to make TBO the focal point but they continue to retain the status quo of the general use of the site.
So you have ineptitude in print, you have ineptitude in digital… You have a property that has value because it’s multimedia content delivery (that gets around FCC rules) but an inept corporation running things.
Put the media center and the three properties on the block slaes block, Mother Corporate. It’s the only way you are going to boost your stock price — and that’s all that matters to you anyway. not the communities your newspapers and media properties serve.
E
1 year ago
Some of the other hugely talented people who have fallen to the ax:
Mike Wells
Martha Durrance
Steve Girardi
Craig Gemoulis
B.C. Manion
John McCoy
Mark Holan
Kelvin Ma
Dave Nicholson
Janis Froelich
Taking the buyout:
Karen Branch-Brioso
Gretchen Parker
Jan Hollingsworth
and many more
junebee
1 year ago
The Community Columnists were just a deep-discount way of filling space, rather than paying the rates for good, nationally-known syndicated columnists.
pj
1 year ago
to be honest… who missed bob? I think his columns here are a joke. who pays someone to give their opinion on movies… is that something that really deserves a “local” perspective? also… I hate to say it, but I’ve lived here my entire life, gotten the trib over the times, and still only recognize 25% of the names… they may be from tampa, but they aren’t the cogs in tampa you say they are… let’s be real.
Kris DiGiovanni
1 year ago
Actually, there have been Community Columnist articles published as recently as October – but only a couple. We’ve been writing, but they’re too busy now to pay any attention, and they haven’t had the courtesy to tell us we don’t fit in with their “audience friendly” re-make any longer.
Mark Hankins
1 year ago
If Reggie Middleton’s Boom Bust Blog is to be believed, we are about to witness in local radio what has happened to the Tampa Tribune (keep in mind Clear Channel already did a round of it, which resulted in the ascendancy of hosts like Glenn Beck and Todd Schnitt on the national stage). In short, there isn’t money to pay the talent any more, and that talent is going to get the boot in favor of whatever they can automate or pipe in to us from a remote location.
Martin Shalls
1 year ago
Re: junebee’s comment on the Community Columnists, there were many fine ones, particularly the first ones. I recall good articles in that first year. There was a gentleman I believe whose name was Scruggs and wrote well, and there was Luis (Lewis?) Viera, and others.
Robert
1 year ago
Lost photographers since August; Robert Burke /22 yrs, Greg Fight/22 yrs, Candace Mundy/20 yrs, Colin Hackley/20 yrs, Victor Junco/15s yrs. With so many Tampa Tribune still photographers being let go it leaves dual roles for 23 Channel 8 video folks to do it all. Now down from a staff of 28 in 1980’s over a dozen have departed leaving 9 to cover Tampa and Metro area. The term or word “quality” is now called “acceptable” for images. sigh.
Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog » Blog Archive » fixin’ da noozpaipa!
1 year ago
[...] know all about the “round of deep cuts,” and you may have heard that Media General plans a new high end print publication (more on [...]
Janice Albert
6 months ago
Who cares about Rosemary Goudreau? She deserves being kicked in the ass by her executive editor. She portrays herself and swaggers around town like she’s the executive editor. She’s a self-centered, narcissistic, incompetent editor. Her colleagues at the Enquirer will tell you that. Plus, opinions and editorials are available all over the Internet. Would you pay for someone telling you the same opinion available online?