Tag Archives: winston-salem newspaper

Pretty Soon the Journal Could Be a Home-Based Business

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More bad news for the Camel City's last major tree killer:

A corporate consolidation initiative by Media General Inc. will result in the elimination of two newsroom operations at the Winston-Salem Journal by Oct. 31, company officials said Wednesday.
 
The copy-editing and page-design departments will be shifted to larger Media General publications –the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia and The Tampa Tribune in Florida. The consolidated operation is expected to start up in the third quarter, said Media General, which is based in Richmond.

The consolidation will involve job cuts.

 "It is undetermined how many jobs and where," said Ray Kozakewicz, a spokesman for Media General. The Journal has 18½ positions in those two departments, representing 20 percent of its newsroom staff.

A design coordinator will be based at the Journal, Kozakewicz said.

From what I can tell it sounds like they'll be losing about 16 people from the 92-ish that are currently there.  Sure, some might be able to get jobs in Richmond or Tampa if they want them but that's still a job loss as far as Winston-Salem is concerned. 

At this rate I might be able to rent the Journal space in my house as the kids move out over the next five years.  I can easily accommodate the five of them and their computers.  I might even be able to fit in the high speed copier (with collator/stapler!).  


Winston-Salem Journal’s Managing Editor Heading Out

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Ken Otterbourg, the Winston-Salem Journal's managing editor, is leaving the paper at the end of the month.  From his blog post about his departure:

We will be running a story tomorrow announcing my resignation as
managing editor at the Journal. We told the staff yesterday. So
consider this the tease, as it will make you read the article.
But the short version is that a) I wanted to try some other things
besides running a newsroom before I got too old to make the transition
and that b) I had some substantial disagreements with our corporate
staff about some planned changes for our newsroom in the coming year.

Update: I'll keep in place the speculatin' that I wrote below just to show how off one person (me) can be when working with partial info.  According to the article that the Journal ran about Otterbourg's resignation his disagreement with the corporate office has to do with consolidating the copy editing and design functions of the three largest papers.  Of course that could have led to people being let go (speculation number 1), but still it looks like I really was speaking through my nether regions. Update End

That last line has me speculatin' and the three possibilities that pop into my head are:

  1. He's had to be the guy handing out pink slips the last couple of years and he doesn't want to do more of the same.  In classic corporate style the suits in Richmond want him to cut senior reporters since they cost so much and hand the reins to kids out of journalism school (if such people still exist) and hope for the best.  
  2. The suits in Richmond want the newsroom to be better integrated with advertising so that they can offer more "innovative" business solutions to their advertisers.  Hey, if it's good for Murdoch's peeps then why not Media General's?
  3. The suits are considering pulling the plug on the printed product and going entirely digital.

Remember this is pure speculation on my part and I could be totally talking out of my nether regions, but I don't think the speculation is too much of a stretch, especially the first one.  Believe me, I hope I'm wrong.