Getting the 'tone' at the DNews
Update . . .Deseret News government reporters pulled their bylines today in protest of management changes made as the paper transforms itself into a Mormon niche publication.
Assistant managing editor for news Chuck Gates and business editor Julianne Basinger have been demoted. Gates is now a "special writer." Basinger has been sent to the copy desk. State government editor Josh Loftin says, "In both cases, you can't call it anything but a demotion."
Why? In the words of veteran DNews reporter James Thalman:
We weren't going Mo' enough, fast enough.Gates and Bassinger reportedly often fought against stories being killed or slanted because they "were not acceptable to the LDS reader." The change is not coming from the Church Office Building, Loften says:
This is a decision made ultimately by Joe Cannon. It's being done because he believes sincerely the way to save the newspaper is to turn it into a publication for a niche LDS reader. The News needs to still educate them, [Cannon says] but not offend their sensibilities or put the LDS chuch in a negative light.Tad Walch, a Utah County reporter, will replace Gates, Loftin says, because Walch "gets the tone" that Cannon, a former GOP state party chair and lobbyist, has been pushing since he took over at the DNews. "They can never tell us what the 'tone' is," Loftin says. "They say, 'You'll know it when you get it.' "
Loften's government staff, including political editor Bob Bernick, pulled their bylines from their stories — the only real control a reporter has over his or her work. The bylines were replaced with "By Deseret News staff."
22 Comments:
The SLLIB vrs the MONEWS?.....I will take the Deseret News!
It's not about "LIB" vs "MO". It's about the Church's agenda to protect the fragile "faith" of its members by sanitizing reality.
Niche pubs may be all that's left once the "new media" dethrone the "old media," whose biz model (print advertising, silly!) no longer commands so many dollars. I suspect the tonal argument is more about attracting and retaining advertisers, not readers. Tens of thousands of loyal readers will pay for the D News, no matter what's in it. Call it a "foolish tradition of their fathers." Insert wink emoticon here.
Unfortunately I do think old media is going to die. Then we'll all realize just how bad free media is and a viable post-new media will emerge.
My sweet grandmother keeps trying to send me Trib articles to Washington. . . we are finally on the same page that I get the news before she does :) She is pretty savvy however, the woman is 86 and can retrieve a text message :) OLD MEDIA IS DEAD! The DESERET news is a disgrace. Who has even heard of it? I grew up Mormon and had never even heard of it! HA HA HA HA HA HA! Now I am one of "those" crazy liberals. . . see you in hell!
Applaud the action, but it is a mixed praise for Gates, and especially Bassinger, whose sense of self-importance and arrogance, unfortunately, exceeds her actual talent by 100-fold. As anyone who has ever worked with her.
Um, Glen you should actually plunk down the 50 cents for the paper today. It's at least 95 percent of the staff.
Mormons are retards.
Um, is it "Loften" or "Loftin"? Or did Trib copy editors get demoted, too? I'm jus' sayin'....
Would not even paper train a puppy on that right wing bigoted Rag ! It's not worth the paper it's printed on.
The DNews is a joke, as its readership, which it is apparently targeting successfully. Look at the top 10 stories as of 11AM on 2/24 (from the site's "most popular" gizmo:
1. Jazz ground Hawks
2. How long, Booz?
3. Still Smiling: LDS Man Stays Up (Not a Viagra ad. I checked)
4. BYU should have plenty of urgency
5. Taking time out: LDS Ladies like it (not a response to #3, as far as I can tell)
6. Porn addiction part 2
7. Bible key to Joseph Smith
8. Jazz now need road wins
9. Boys basketball Top 20
10. Devastating Statistics (about $2.4T spent on health care)
Compare that list to the top 10 stories gizmo of any other paper this side of sanity and you'll see that Cannon's mission is succeeding. DNews is at the "This People" stage of its metastasis to The Ensign.
Every publication in the world has an agenda that it follows. That agenda is set by those who write the checks. There is no such thing as unbiased reporting or unbiased reading. It's a fact, and no amount of bashing will change the Trib, the DNews, or any other purveyor of information. Deal with it!
Yes,the D-News has always been slanted, but in some areas it actually gave the Trib a little competition. A one-newspaper town (which Cannon just made SLC) is not in the public interest.
Just in case I thought I could ever become a "niche LDS reader" (and I am LDS) this has canned it. I usually read the Trib at length and take a glance at the DNews just in case there might be anything worth reading. Guess I can skip those glances from now on.
This is one of the expected outcomes when people--however smart--coming from outside a journalistic tradition control news organizations. Look at Sam Zell and the Chicago Trib/LA Times; look, too, as the influence their mother companies have had on the TV network news.
A clear understanding and commitment to the press role and responsibility in informing and engaging the public is required of CEOs for news organizations to survive, let alone for them to fulfill their essential role in an informed participatory democracy.
I have no problem with niche publications--hell, I have "Maine Boats" in my bathroom. But metro newspapers aren't niche publications and, I'm afraid, the DNews can't do its job that way.
As a media person and an LDS church member (from outside of Utah), I can tell you this is a mistake. There is not enough legitimate church news to justify a strictly "Mormon" newspaper. It would turn into Mormon gossip. (Does Cannon really want to be responsible for the first Mormon tabloid? How embarrassing.)
What's more, publishing *real* local, national and world news with an LDS slant is doing a disservice to the religion's good name and anyone gullible enough to glean their information through a tinted lens. The church supports the education of its members. This is the opposite.
The real mistake, in my opinion, is the LDS Church owning a SLC media outlet that will inevitably spend a good deal of time reporting on...the LDS Church.
This is a bit like Mike Bloomberg owning The New York Times. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
Wow, what an insightful business leader.
Since the newspaper industry is in decline anyway perhaps we should target the fastest shrinking demographic in the state!
Now thats the kind of business acumen that made Geneva Steel Corp what it is today.
New byline for the DNews:
By a Forced Deseret Propagadist
Is the DNews like the Legislature? All action must be e-mailed to Church office first for approval and editing?
"Toe the Mo line or be dumped" school of Journalism. (BYU taught Journalism, science, history, archaeology, pyschology, law.)
Someone could try to re-open the expositor in SLC, I understand the one in navoo had a bad fire a while back.
Somehow I'm not surprised that a negative article published in the SLT about the DN would have so many DN-bashers posting about it. If you don't like the newspaper, don't buy it. That's the best way to show them what you think about the publication. All this constant DN-bashing on the part of the SLT is really pathetic.
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