Community World

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by Double A

F*#k the Whirled. Rwarn is awfully quiet on this subject. Hmmmm.

Rwarn still has his job, and likely wants to keep it that way.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by GOLDIROCKS

I know all too well the cold, callous nature of the tulsa world. I worked for two of the Your Community World zones for over EIGHT years, just to be abruptly canned when they started combining offices. When Charles Biggs was in charge, the issues had 8-10 or more pages, readers couldn't get enough and the company made money. Everyone was happy...except downtown. They couldn't stand not having total control over everything. They ran Charley off and got Delbert Schafer to come in and systematically destroy everything. This man actually told me, "If it ain't broke, BREAK it so you can fix it." By the time I was cut, (with no severance!) the issues were down to a measly 4 pages. Some employees left when Charley did, and I wish I could have done the same, especially if I had known what was going to happen to me anyway. Now the rest of the Community World employees know what I already knew the day Charley left. The Lortons have so much money, more than most of us could even comprehend. What the Lortons don't seem to have is the sense to know that paper is highly flammable, and that is going to make it really difficult to run a newspaper where they are going... Charley, you were a terrific boss and it was an honor to work with you. Best of luck with The Beacon.

quote:Originally posted by Emily

Their Web site doesn't mention this today, but the Tulsa World is ceasing publication of the Community World and has laid off the entire CW staff. I notice that the announcement on the front of today's Westside issue -- which was added after we'd proofed the Westside pages, and which resulted in a reporter's actual work being spiked to make room for it -- omitted that bit about the layoffs. The announcement also neglects to mention the fact that those laid off were given absolutely no warning and received eight days' pay and 26 days' benefits in exchange for their loyalty to the company. And it entirely fails to notify readers that two of the people laid off had been hired less than two weeks earlier.

One woman had signed a lease on a new apartment four days earlier. Another had put a down payment on a condo a week before the axe fell. One girl had quit a job at Urban Tulsa Weekly just three weeks ago to come to the Community World. A woman who has struggled financially for several years had just gotten back on her feet and was about to move into a house. Another has worked for the company for ... 13 years, I think? She repeatedly asked for an explanation of why we were given no warning that this was coming and no time to find other jobs or make other plans. She was given a reason for the layoffs, but she received absolutely no explanation for the callous manner in which the layoffs were handled. [B)]

Money will buy Armani suits and Ferraris and all sorts of other pretty toys. It will put a few kids through Holland Hall, and it will buy their grandma's best friend a byline on a column that someone else ghostwrites for her. But there is one thing money -- even old money -- can't buy: Class. And I've seen far more of that commodity in Oakhurst, Turley, and my beloved Red Fork than I see coming out of the mansions around Woodward Park this morning.

There is a bigger picture here. You saw the publications from a journalists perspective. I saw them from the sales and business end. I never saw them make money in the years I was there and because of the rate schedule and complexity its doubtful they ever would. But even if they did it was illusory. They were charging for advertising at artificially low rates.

Consider the "success" of the Ford Falcon back in the sixties. People loved it and bought lots of them. Ford surveyed the buyers and found they were former Fairlane buyers who were moving down to buy the cheaper, less profitable Falcon. In effect, they lost money on every one of those buyers. The Falcon was retooled and repackaged as the more profitable Mustang.

The World experience was the same. They were selling $20 column inch advertising to businesses that would have bought $75 column inch ads if there were no other choice. (not sure of the current rates) Once the competitors in the market were either too lame or closed up shop...there was no reason to keep bloodletting.

Biggs is a good guy, probably a good journalist too, but making writers into managers was another one of their weaker ideas.

[blindnil]

I'm sorry, but Charley Biggs' The Beacon looks like a second grader put it together. I would hardly call him a good journalist.

[Emily]

I don't know who took my initial comment here and cross-posted it to the Tulsa World's Web site without my knowledge or consent, but I just found out about it and would like the record to show that I don't appreciate it.

Had I wanted that comment on the TW site, I would have put it there, and I would have attached my name to it. I did not do so for several reasons -- chief among them the fact that I think it's ubertacky when people use the TW site to take shots at the man who owns it. That's like accepting an invitation to a party for the express purpose of getting close enough to your host to punch him in the face.

Frankly, I regret the tone of my initial comment here -- not because I am particularly concerned about what Bobby Lorton thinks of me, but because I make it a point of honor never to let a comment about an issue drift into the realm of personal attacks, which that one clearly did.

I am unhappy with Mr. Lorton's behavior, but there's a difference between criticizing his behavior and attacking him, and I'm afraid I crossed the line. I stand by my assertion that he's too good to act the way he did last week, but there were kinder ways to make that point ... which goes to show that all of us are capable of doing things that are beneath us now and then.

Perhaps that's the real lesson I was supposed to learn from all this.

To GOLDIROCKS: I will stand on Charley Biggs' coffee table and tell him that Delbert Schafer is a damn good journalist who dramatically improved the quality of the Community World during his tenure there. Delbert believed in the Community World, and I've heard from many sources that he fought like a tiger to try to save us when he learned that we were in danger. He didn't have to do that. He was close enough to retirement to say, "Oh, well -- sucks to be them" and move on. But he didn't.

Delbert is not a natural rebel-rouser, but when the chips were down, he cared enough about his staff to fight for us. That speaks volumes about the kind of man he is. Delbert, if you're reading this ... thank you.

[Double A]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

quote:Originally posted by Double A

F*#k the Whirled. Rwarn is awfully quiet on this subject. Hmmmm.

Rwarn still has his job, and likely wants to keep it that way.

Don't s*#t where ya eat, eh? Even if they are feeding ya poison? Sounds to me like those workers need a Union.

[Sardonicus Rex]

As a former CW staff writer myself, I can tell you the reason the Zone coverage was "mostly fluff" (with which I do not disagree) is because (at least when I was there) we all had to turn in a list of the stories we wanted to write a week in advance, and if they sounded halfway decent, they were scooped up by the downtown newsroom and doled out to general assignment or beat reporters. It became quite an exercise to make your story sound as bland as possible to avoid it being taken away.

The Zones were always treated as the JV team when I was there and from what I've been told have been since. We were frequently passed along letters to the editor -- good and bad -- about our zone coverage but those letters never saw the light of day in the main section.

Frankly, I'm surprised the World kept them as long as they did. I figured they'd have gotten rid of them not long after they ran Charley off.

[breitee]

CW sucked. Most of the time the articles contained within a zone had nothing to do with that zone geographically. Wht would they include a story about something in Owasso in the westside edition?

[Sardonicus Rex]

quote:Originally posted by breitee

CW sucked. Most of the time the articles contained within a zone had nothing to do with that zone geographically. Wht would they include a story about something in Owasso in the westside edition?

I can only speak to what I know about, but there were many occasions that the advertising (and therefore news space to fill) exceeded what we were able to get approved for our zone a week in advance.

Unless something changed along the way, there wasn't a lot of autonomy for reporters to go out and pick up stories along the way w/o going through all the bureaucracy of the Great Satan, so editors filled the extra space with news from other zones. Some of the zone stories had interest across all of them, but unfortunately, most did not.