If Manchester bought the newspaper outright, he'd get a key piece of property that local real estate analysts have said was a valuable part of the Union-Tribune's 2009 sale to Platinum: The company's main building, which sits on 13 acres in Mission Valley, just south of the Fashion Valley mall.
The Sun was supposed to go to print tomorrow. If the printing question has to go to the college board, students fear the board could prevent them from printing before a November election in which three members of the college board are up for re-election.Students are considering raising the approximate $3,000 needed to print the paper from outside sources.
Their campaigns are tied to the controversial tenure of Superintendent Raj Chopra, who has been in the crosshairs of faculty members after making unpopular, unilateral cuts. The Sun has written extensively about the clashes and their campaigns. Its upcoming issue was slated to include articles about the candidates, the ongoing battle over whether the college will keep its state accreditation, and a summer fundraiser held by the college vice president in which he raised money from companies whose contracts he oversees.
"It seems very convenient. They're pulling this ancient policy out of nowhere," said Lyndsay Winkley, a student writer for the Sun.
No more anonymous commenting on the website...
We want it to be civil and smart. Unfortunately, many of the conversations that take place underneath the articles on news websites devolve into name-calling, racist or sexist remarks, and other vulgarities. That's in no small part because of the veil provided by anonymity and a lack of moderating by news organizations.
That's also not the kind of conversation we're willing to host on our website. We will -- and already have for a long time -- moderate the posts to weed out overly personal attacks or unsubstantiated allegations. It's never been a perfect system, but we do our best. Comments aren't moderated to exclude a specific political view or shield us or others from legitimate criticism. And we don't discourage pointed or passionate discourse.
This isn't censorship or a 1st Amendment issue. This is a forum we're choosing to host and these are the rules we're asking people to abide by.
"I went into the meeting not super receptive, given that this is the management team that had laid off more than 100 people the day before," said one newsroom staffer. "I came out feeling better about the future of the paper than I have in two years."Employees were told the mass layoffs are over, but changes in production will probably mean more people will lose jobs in the near future.
Two other newsroom workers agreed with that assessment, and all three said they were hopeful and impressed by the new management's willingness to criticize the old regime. (The staff members requested anonymity for fear of antagonizing the new bosses.)
Bob Kittle, the editorial page editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune, has been laid off, according to newsroom sources. So has Bernie Jones, the editor of the newspaper's opinion page. ...The Globe mentioned the pending layoffs in a profile of the paper's new owner, Platinum Equity of Beverly Hill. The company, which bought the Union-Tribune in May and promptly laid off 192 employees, has put in a bid to buy the Globe from the New York Times Co.
The newspaper is in the midst of laying off staffers throughout the business. We're working to confirm the size and scope of the layoffs[.]
(h/t LA Biz Observed)The San Diego Union-Tribune said Wednesday that it is eliminating an undisclosed number of jobs as part of a package of initiatives that also includes new editorial and advertising offerings.
The company announced an advertising program that will allow micro-zoning for small businesses at lower, localized rates, as well as an editorial effort that will produce more local coverage of targeted communities.
It also announced a planned redesign of the company's SignOnSanDiego.com Web site, as well as an investment in a pagination publishing system it said would significantly streamline the newspaper's production process.
The company also said it would partially reverse pay cuts for remaining employees that were implemented in February.
“These initiatives, taken as a whole, strike a balance between our short-term economic reality and our long-term aspirations for growth and reinvention of our product,” Union-Tribune Publisher Ed Moss said.
The Boston Globe profiles Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity, which bought the San Diego Union-Tribune in March and has put in a bid of $35 million to buy the Globe from New York Times Co.“They don’t care whether it’s a newspaper or a dairy or a gas station or a small engine manufacturer,’’ said the person close to the transaction. “They’re looking at the fundamentals of the business. If they think they can make money at a certain transaction price, they’re interested in that business.’’Platinum Equity already has a regional office in Boston.
"This is not the Union-Tribune's non-profit," said Lorie Hearn, who currently oversees the paper's watchdog journalism efforts. "It is my idea for starting a nonprofit, and I approached The San Diego Union-Tribune as partners."
However,the U-T has made a substantial financial commitment to the fledgling enterprise and will be its lead partner, Hearn said in an interview today.
While certain investigative stories may be made available to all media organizations, they'll be provided exclusively to official partners such as the U-T first, she said.
U-T editor Karin Winner announced to staff on Friday that Hearn will leave the paper to start The Watchdog Institute, which is negotiating a partnership that may allow it to be housed at San Diego State University.
Hard as it may be to believe, we may have entered a new rocky period for newspaper companies. It would be a period in which the real estate on which they sit determines their market value. Consequently, their real estate value may determine who wants to sell the newspaper property and who wants to buy it -- to get at the real estate.
As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities, forcing the papers to follow the stories they uncover.Here it is VoiceofSanDiego.org, offering a brand of serious, original reporting by professional journalists — the province of the traditional media, but at a much lower cost of doing business. Since it began in 2005, similar operations have cropped up in New Haven, the Twin Cities, Seattle, St. Louis and Chicago. More are on the way.
Their news coverage and hard-digging investigative reporting stand out in an Internet landscape long dominated by partisan commentary, gossip, vitriol and citizen journalism posted by unpaid amateurs.
The fledgling movement has reached a sufficient critical mass, its founders think, so they plan to form an association, angling for national advertising and foundation grants that they could not compete for singly. And hardly a week goes by without a call from journalists around the country seeking advice about starting their own online news outlets.
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