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Close observers of The Oregonian’s power scorecard (the list of top management published on the daily’s editorial page) noticed a change over the weekend.
Off the list, as one of the paper’s three managing editors, is Jack Hart, longtime writing coach. On the list is Michael Arrieta-Walden, whose track record includes a stint as the paper’s public editor.
Here’s an email from editor Sandy Rowe (the O’s top editorial position) to the paper’s staff from earlier this month that reviews the changes:
To: Everyone
From: Sandy Rowe
In the past several months we have spent a great deal of time examining
the work we do, deciding and further defining what work is most
important to our future, how to best accomplish that work, and talking
through how to adapt the organization and our systems to support it.
Many of you have been involved in discussions of research we have and
may need, the pillars of our journalism, possible changes to sections we
should consider and other initiatives. Now, we are beginning to pull
that together.
As you know, we must transform The Oregonian into a news organization
characterized by a reader-first culture across platforms, by agility,
and by rigorous and shared standards of success. Our leadership jobs
must align with and support our mission, and provide clarity of purpose
for the rest of the organization.
You recall that throughout this there have been three clear goals
embedded in our mission. First, we believe we can improve the content
and our connection to readers in such a way that we can increase
readership of the newspaper. Second, we know the work we do in this
newsroom can drive increased readership of our content on OregonLive and
that we can build our value to readers and viewers by creating content
on OregonLive that is more suited to online utility rather than print.
In order to accomplish this, we know we must fully integrate online
goals into the newsroom. Third, we know that to accomplish any of this,
we must become organizationally stronger and more effective. We must
learn new tools and how to best utilize them, we must prioritize our
work, and we must find new ways to maximize the talent and impact each
of us has in print and online. We must have clearly focused goals for
individuals and teams, and continue to improve training. In short, we
must expect and help everyone do the very best work of their careers
during this time of transition and challenge. We must all be committed
to this transformation.
To accomplish that, Peter and I are announcing the following leadership
changes:
Therese Bottomly becomes
MANAGING EDITOR — READERSHIP AND STANDARDS.
Therese will lead us in establishing the highest editing standards
throughout all operations and will oversee all copy editing. She will be
our expert on readership and reader research, and will establish,
institute and reinforce methods of building readership in our daily
decisions. Therese will also lead the expansion of reader communication
and involvement. She will continue to lead us on open access issues and
be our newsroom liaison with attorneys. She will establish and lead
improved systems of goal-setting for individuals and teams. She will
oversee our training efforts and with George Rede ensure training is
focused on our goals. She will continue to supervise the
national-international team leader and will do the same for the copy
desk chief. She will continue to edit columnists and will determine how
we can best increase the impact of columns, criticism and personal
journalism. She will be the point person and chief advocate for the
opinion pillar as it pertains to non-editorial page operations.
Therese will report to Sandy. Mia Bush, George Rede, Holly Franko,
Steve Duin, Renee Mitchell, Margie Boule and Marjorie Helton will report
to her.
———————————————————————————-
Steve Engelberg becomes MANAGING EDITOR — PRINT.
His responsibility will be making the newspaper as good as it can be
every day. He will lead newsgathering and deployment of our news
resources and lead coordination between all the paper’s sections,
including for the Sunday paper. He will oversee all the fourth-floor
reporting teams, Living and Arts, and the Sunday editor. Steve will be
the primary keeper of the enterprise, watchdog and specialty reporting
pillars.
He will report to Peter. Pete Lesage, Chris Hunt, Barry Johnson and the
fourth-floor team leaders (other than Sports) will report to him.
———————————————————————————-
Mike Arrieta-Walden becomes MANAGING EDITOR — ONLINE.
As Mike has done so well for us the past many months, he will continue
to lead the integration of online work into our operations. He will
continue to be our online evangelist, will set online goals and
priorities, and help us measure success. He will continue to be our main
liaison with OregonLive and will be the prime keeper of the online
pillar as well as leading us on implementation of the principles of the
community connections pillar with Bruce Hammond.
Mike will report to Peter. Jeff Wohler, John Killen, the data editor to
be named, multimedia editors and the online operation will continue to
report to him.
- Oregonian Managing Editor Steve Engelberg Leaving Steve Enge
- New Moves at The Oregonian In WW
- Oregonian Editor Tells Staff It Appears Layoffs Are “Inevitable” Some disp
- The Oregonian Acknowledges Its Sticky Situation With Mayor Sam Adams Oregonian
- The Oregonian Loses A Second Top Editor to ProPublica The Orego
So what’s happened to Jack Hart?
Well that is a revealing and unintentionally hilarious memo. First, it’s too bad that “get at the truth without allowing our personal bias to interfere” is not one of the Oregonian’s goals. I think they’d benefit from that mindset.
Secondly, Therese Bottomly’s job description is ridiculous. That’s work for 5 people, at least. There’s no way any one person can do all of those things, and Therese, God Bless her, won’t be able to do any of them well given the workload.
Thirdly, have you ever read such a bunch of gobbledegook double-speak? How the hell did someone as clueless as Sandy Rowe ever get such a position of responsibility? The Peter Principle in action.
For someone who has grown up here, watching this newspaper stumble and fumble around, all the while allowing editorial board thinking to determine news content and vice-versa (”coordination across all sections”) and pursuing a political agenda, saddens me.
And the memo has inspired a new Slate series on media criticism by Jack Schafer:
http://www.slate.com/id/2162282/
Congratulations, Sandy.
Why use one word, when a paragraph will do?
After reading this, all I could remember was Dilbert’s “buzzword bingo.” I think this memo could cover the entire card.
Ah,If only saying it could make it so! Ms Rowe (a long-time member of the Oregonian inner circle) has managed here to reduce the job of reporting from the exciting into the tedious. I quit subscribing to the Oregonian some months ago and now have a lively slew of websites to visit every AM with my coffee. Even if God Herself wrote for the O’s hardcopy edition, I will never go back to the obsolete piles of advertising inserts, tons of Sunday throwaway news print and unreliable delivery time that describes my past experience with the Oregonian.
President Bush was right: Our children isn’t learning. (Sadly, some of them is now newspaper editors.)
The Oregonian has, for years, fired its best talent, or let that talent move on the better papers, and let its best bureaucrats stay on to run the paper. Sandy’s memo is the best complete evidence for that. The rivers of gray ink that remain in the paper every are show why its circulation shrinks years after year, and why the industry is going down a leaking toilet. The website is worthless, the ads are disappearing, and most news goes unreported by anyone. Woe to the press, woe to the press.
Well, I’m both proud and sad to say that with the exception of three articles I have been “on strike” from the O for 2 months now. Have I missed anything…cue to sound of crickets chirping…I didn’t think so. That said, I decided to help Ms. Rowe out and edit her memo for her. It was an onerous task as it was so poorly written, but here’s a crack at it coming in at 250 words:
“Based on previous research and discussions that many of you have been involved in regarding the future of the paper, we are in the process of considering changes in order to survive and remain a relevant news source. This also includes specific staff changes as outlined below.
It is clear that we must transform the Oregonian so that leadership is aligned with and supports our mission and that this is clearly communicated to the rest of the organization.
We have three goals with the aim to attract more readership and provide an overall better newspaper:
1. Improve the content and our connection to readers.
2. Improve on and expand OregonLive content to include specific web content not available in the print version of the paper. In order to do this we must better integrate OregonLive goals into the daily work of the newsroom.
3. Become stronger organizationally
Furthermore in order to be more effective overall we must:
1. Learn new tools and how to best utilize them, we must prioritize our work, and we must find new ways to maximize the talent and impact each of has both in print and online
2. Have clearly focused goals for individuals and teams, and continue to improve training.
In short, we must expect and help everyone do the very best work of their careers
during this time of transition and challenge. We must all be committed to this transformation.”
so the o wasn’t reader driven and focused before? nice admission, sandy.
Good points, all, about the delivery. But how about the content of the memo: I hope that The Oregonian will take this opportunity to address basic, and I would think embarassing, functionality problems of OregonLive.com. Foremost in my mind is the mystery of vanishing stories. Older links to stories litter the Internet, but result in blank pages when clicked. I can understand that the O. might want people to pay for access to older stories, but they fail to communicate HOW to locate a story – even if one is willing to pay – based on its now-defunct link. If the link led to a “click here to enter credit card info” button, that would be a mild improvement. If that were accompanied by basic bibliographical info that made it possible to track the story down at the local library, that would reflect the spirit of service that I think most expect of the news leader of a major American city.
Sadly, the memo is much more common in the industry than any executive will admit. We are digging are own grave and filling it in behind us. Retirement awaits me, and shuffleboard looks exciting.
I read The Oregonian every day, usually cover to cover. I also read WW, The Mercury, The Tribune, and sometimes when I’m feeling flush I’ll treat myself to a NY Times and a USA Today.
I can’t think of a single publication — and the list is way longer than those ones — that people don’t gripe about. When I lived in DC, people griped about the Post. Every writer I know, gripes about the Times and their typos!
I can’t get too hyped up about the organizational structure of the O. As long as I live and work in Portland, I will read it to know what’s going on in my immediate world.
There has certainly been occasion when I’ve called or written to give feedback on articles. Unfailingly, reporters or editors call back.
Long live a daily newspaper and long live freedom of the press. And for that matter, long live freedom of speech to criticize said newspaper(s).
Let’s go back to the good old days of personalities that drove a publication to deliver the best journalism with style and flair and no catering to the corporate world, when editors KNEW what people wanted to read and gave personal direction to make it happen, instead of committees thinking they know, which they usually don’t. No great organizations have been birthed from committee or consensus thinking. All they produce is blah. This paper now caters to 13 year olds.
Gee, for a minute I thought I was reading a Gannett memo …
There is an identity crisis at the Oregonian that stems from a sickness of the soul deep in the editorial board. What do they really care about? They don’t really know except that they are desperate to increase readership, which has been in a gradual decline. After the O’s cover-up for Neil Goldschmidt, the inherent lack of soul only got worse. With their endorsement of Ron Saxton for no particular reason and their New Year’s Eve blood lust over the lynching of Saddam Hussein, the Oregonian seemed to be moving in the direction of taking its liberal to moderate readership for granted in an effort to increase its conservative readership, particularly outside of the metro area, thereby offsetting an erosion in local circulation. It is interesting now to have my suspicion confirmed by Ms. Rowe’s memo that the editorial position and news focus should become more market-driven. Incidentally, as a New Year’s resolution, we canceled our subscription. It has been nearly 3 months and we don’t miss it (except for the weather forecast, which was usually wrong anyway).
I’m so disappointed. She left out “linchpin”!
But she didn’t leave out “impacted.” This is the kind of writing that is taught in higher education. Throw words down, and make sure that they sound edumahooticated, lest the reader doubt for a moment that the writer has a collitch degree. I love reading the Oregonian, and it’s sad that a non-writer is spewing out this bullshit that real journalists have to read. It’s academese, and bureacrat-speak. It’s the same shit that edumahooticators excrete when they try to write. Take a look at “Made,” WW’s new column, and you’ll see the same why-edit-I’m-educated first-draft sloppiness: “… sate his affection for these sublime animals (goats).” This isn’t writing; it’s stringing words together, like popcorn and cranberries on a Christmas tree. When you have a piece of paper that says you’re educated, you don’t have to bother to learn to write.
I just found this forum about the WW article claims and state sthe changes at the O. I mean I found this forum by accident. So I accidentally am now informed of furthermore what I do not want to know. O hh h,
\n o o o! It’s the same old Story at the O. THis is why I switched to reading the Ner York TImes more often. ANd I concur with one reader here. The Oregon live.com has terrible problems. Instead of demanding that people pay for archived articles, why not show the community that the O can offer something better first? Then call up the NY TImes and ask them oh so kindly if we can borow the program that the TImes uses for their daily archiving. I would ask the Oregonian, where the hell is the technology at anyway? – Mark.