As changes at the Union-Trib continue with last week’s seventh round of staff layoffs, it appears no stone is being left unturned as management determines the future of the paper, including its online content. Check out yesterday’s entry by Chris Reed on America’s Finest Blog…
http://www.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/americas-finest/2010/jun/22/whats-americas-finest/
Let’s hope the mucketies at the paper find continued value in pushing the blog medium forward and allowing it to expand, not gutting it. Reed’s blog gives some unique political perspective and more of a cutting edge approach than can be found in the traditional broadsheet.
If anything has held AFB back from more of a following, it’s been the U-T’s lack of hi-liting and marketing it, so more readers would know it was there.
All of these things take money, of course, something not as abundant as a few years ago, especially in the world of newsprint. However, the future of news is in the far less costly electrons of on-line content, as compared to paper and ink.
It would seem a step backwards to end a blog that takes the U-T in that direction.
Comments 14
Maybe they got tired of his holier than thou attitude. The best strategy would be something that does not involve him, but if they are going to keep him may I suggest giving him a delivery route.
I would love to be waiting on the steps every morning at 5 am to explain that if he wants a tip he has to deliver the paper to my door steps not the end of the driveway. That is how the free market works Chris – the customer is always right!
I have disagreed with Chris over an issue or two (some pretty significant), yet the point here of course is not about whether one likes him or not, it’s about whether the U-T gets that the times they are a-changin’. Of course they get it, but to what extent? You can cut your staff until you produce a daily that even the best of paperboys can’t throw more than three feet, or you can try to figure out how to make a go of it with the new medium as a central component of your business plan, which means giving readers diverse reasons to select your on-line content as a news source of choice.
I recently started my subscription again only to turn around and cancel 3 weeks later. There just isn’t any substance to the UT anymore. They for years have been lazy in their reporting and almost no investigative skills any longer and there bias reporting offers nothing.
As far as Chris Reed is concerned, no comment.
Also nothing new posted at the UT’s All in Favor political blog for several days:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/all-in-favor-politics/
The issue with Chris Reed is not whether you agree with him or not, it’s whether he puts an ounce of thought into his opinions or just parrots the ongoing right wing talking points. You don’t have to dig very far to see how he consistently takes quotes out of context to harp on the same old points.
The issue I have with the UT, and why I stopped sending money for a subscription, is that they consistently editorialize and endorse issues and candidates that I don’t like. So why would I pay money to subsidize something like that. I really don’t think that is the role of a newspaper. The editorial board should be balanced, and provide a range of opinions, and they should get out of the business of endorsing politicians altogether.
Yeah, that newspapers endorsing candidates thing, that’s something pretty unique to the UT, and something that has rarely happened in the history of journalism. LOL!
OB Man, translation… It’s not about Reed’s opinion at all, I just don’t like the fact that he has a conservative opinion. doh.
I respectfully disagree and think it really is about Chris Reed and his lack of integrity. He serves on the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board as well as doing his blog and hosts a radio show on KOGO. He went to painstaking lengths to harp on Assemblyman Joel Anderson, who admitted he made a mistake and paid a substantial fine for it. Days before the 36th Senate election two complaints were filed against Jeff Stone, whom Reed endorsed over Joel Anderson. Did Reed even make mention of the two complaints in any of his three media forums? Did he question Jeff Stone or make him come clean? Stone initially denied that he violated the law regarding the complaint about his failure to properly report donations and now faces a potential fine in excess of $100,000 . Within 48 hours Stone was singing a different tune because he was caught red-handed. Of course, Stone did not admit to the violation, his consultant did. There is not one media interview that I am aware of that Stone himself admits to the violations.
Reed took Anderson to task for not talking to the media (or more accurate to Reed) yet he said nothing about Stone’s indiscretion. Stone indirectly admitted to one of the complaints in which he received over $153,000 and failed to properly report it. Stone completely ignored the other issue which involved him as a sitting County Supervisor voting to donate nearly $10,000 to an organization that was a rent paying tenant of his and he never commented about it at all. It is as if it never happened.
So where is the watchdog Chris Reed on these two issues? Does he not care or is it because it is a candidate whom he endorsed and he does not have the same level of personal animosity towards Jeff Stone that he has for Anderson?
There is a big difference between Anderson’s issue and Stone’s conflict of interest issue. If Stone is found guilty, it means that he voted to give money to an organization that would eventually put money directly into Stone’s pocket. In my opinion that is a much bigger deal than Anderson’s accepting donations over the campaign contribution limits.
An ethical journalist would have at least got Stone on the phone and asked him about the two complaints that were filed against him, especially when he (I mean his consultant) admitted to one of the two within a couple of days.
So yes it is about Chris Reed for me. If you are going to be a watchdog then do it across the board and do it fairly, not selectively against only the elected officials you have a grudge against.
My problem with the UT is just muddled thinking. Look at today’s Op Ed on the Trolley. Now even if you think mass transit is a boondoggle the last paragraph says that the Trolley will alleviate the congestion at 5 & Genessee. However, if they even did a BIT of reporting on this they would note that the proposed Trolley extension doesn’t get anywhere NEAR the employment areas that use that exit (i.e. Torrey Pines Mesa). Time and time again they make the same sort of logical leaps. I dare you to pull out the library booster pieces and then, IRRESPECTIVE OF WHAT YOU FEEL ABOUT IT, read them and not give the ed board an “F” in logical thinking. The only reason I subscribe is that for work I have to skim it. Next year writing off the cost of the thing as a business expense and then backing out its real use as liner for the rabbit cage.
Spin Zone translation. It doesn’t ,matter if there is no substance, data or thought behind your opinion, so long as the conclusion is consistent with the conservative cause.
OB Man, translation: If the opinion is consistent with the conservative cause, then there can’t possibly be an substance, data or thought behind it.
As for Steve Gramm, lot’s of stupid things have happened throughout history, and journalism is not excepted. Of course the op-ed page is not really journalism, but opinion, and I don’t really have any issue with the editorial board expressing opinions especially in the spirit of generating thoughtful discussion. But when a newspaper, the UT or otherwise, endorses political candidates, it becomes part of a political campaign, a tool, instead of source of information or a forum for discussion. I get plenty of political junk mail already, so why do I need to pay for it from the UT? Oh I know, because that’s how its always been, and that’s what everyone else does… So keep LOL while the UT and its ship of fools sinks.
Spin zone translation. So long as I say something enough times and get the last word I must be right!
I will gladly let you have the last rebut, sans one from me.