9/26 UPDATE: Albright is out, and Gillespie is in..."temporarily." Hope that doesn't mean he's going to decimate the opinion pages, then return to his regular newsroom vagaries....
Here's the memo:
"Editorial Page changes
by Chris Harte, Publisher and Chairman
September 26, 2007 - Susan Albright, our editorial page editor, will be leaving the Star Tribune, effective Oct. 12. Scott Gillespie, our managing editor, will move over to be the editorial page editor on an interim basis.
Susan has ably guided the Star Tribune editorial pages with the highest integrity since 1993, and I have the utmost respect for her as a journalist and an editorialist. She is a nationally recognized leader among editorial writers and a former president of the National Conference of Editorial Writers (NCEW).
Under her leadership, the Star Tribune editorial staff has won numerous editorial, op-ed and cartooning awards. In 2001 her staff conceived and launched the Sunday Op Ex section, now called "Opinion Exchange."
With all of these fine credentials to Susan's credit, it is all the more difficult to say that she and I have a difference of opinion that results in her leaving. As I moved into the chairman's role in March and then into the publisher's role, it was clear as Susan and I talked that we had different views of the future.
We have a professional disagreement about the role of the editorial pages and how they should be edited. The main shift I want to see is toward even more locally focused editorial pages.
I believe the role of a metro newspaper is changing radically and rapidly in a world of instant global access to information. I see the need for our editorial pages, like the rest of the newspaper, to concentrate more heavily than ever on local, state and regional issues. This is where we can stake a claim like no other media can.
Our readers can go to many places to get informed opinion on the Iraq war or global warming. But there are very few places they can go for expert opinion on local issues. And that is where I want us to dwell, with the active participation of our readers.
As you know, we will soon be locally zoning the metro news pages, and my mandate to Scott is to move our editorial pages in a direction that complements this local strategy.
Regarding her departure, Susan said: "It has been an honor and a privilege for me to serve as the Star Tribune's editorial page editor for nearly 15 years. I am proud of what the opinion page staff has accomplished in those years. On leaving, I can only express my profound gratitude to all my colleagues, and wish them all the best."
I hope you will please take the time to congratulate Susan on a job very well done. She is a true professional who stands up for her beliefs, articulates them eloquently and genuinely respects the views of others. I wish her all the best.
Posted yesterday: It should come as no surprise to any of our faithful readers that the Strib's, uh, shall-we-say, "progressive leaning" editorial department, under the long-time stewardship of Susan Albright, has for years been a painful, pricking thorn in the side of McClatchy, and now Avista. My partner in crime, currently on a kayaking adventure in Utah, recently posted about management's directive that the editorial department lay off support for the nickel a gallon gas tax hike.
The latest rumor to rumble around Shake-up Central on Portland has Albright stepping down from her post, to be replaced by none other than Strib managing editor Scott Gillespie.
It makes sense.
Gillespie hardly seems a favorite of Strib uber editor Nancy Barnes. Heck, when a reporter from the American Journalism Review showed up earlier this year to do a piece on the paper's contractions, Barnes offered a list of people for him to contact. Although all her other newsroom favs were included, Gillespie's name was nowhere to be found. Then there was the leak that now-vanished publisher Par Ridder wanted to bring PiPress's editor Thom Fladung Stribside (Fladung declined).
Gillespie is well-known as an editor who has continuously lost vertebrae as he's ascended through the ranks and become more adept at avoiding controversy at all costs. Over the last few months, he made his bones with top management by following its staff whacking and restructuring orders to the letter, no matter who got hurt. Staffers who once considered him a friend have no doubt that he'd run the layoff truck over them if Chris Harte so ordered, rather than take a stand.
Having Gillespie in the Editorial driver's seat would not only get him out of the downsized newsroom--where two editors are probably now seen as too many (read expensive)--it would put a malleable executive in charge of what, until now, has been the paper's last bastion of rage against the machine.
Watch this space.
Machine -
How does broadcast News kiss up to corporate America? I take it you are not watching the news, especially in this town. Clear Channel owns stations in varying formats, I hope that you are not infering that KTLK represents the etnire Clear Channel Group. The newspapers are in more trouble, the TV stations are still much more profitable than their newspaper counterparts. TV ratings can go down 25% and still earn a good profit.
Actually Brit,
we needed to scale down, we dont have an endless check book for everything we want. Typical of people as yourself to use emotinal manipulation. No, we shouldnt pay for child care for working adutls. As long as we make no consequence for irresponsible behavoir, society will continue to slip and fall. The state was right to scale back the welfare dollars. Maybe if we had spent less on insuring able bodied adults who could afford to buy their own insurance we would have had more money for bridges. As for your comment on job creation, as long as we continue to make life miserable for any business who wants to stay here, put bans on legal activities like smoking, etc, that trend may continue. Are you implying that by scaling back welfare we have scaled back economic growth? What business school did you go to?
the pioneer press was up 1%?
that is interesting.
what are they doing right?
Liberal bias?
Given broadcast tv and Clear Channel kiss ups to corporate America, I welcome a different view for a change.
By the way, radio and television are in much more trouble than newspapers. WCCO, KARE and KSTP were down 10% in one year while the ST was down 5% and PP was actually up 1%.
Strib Guild contract talks coming up in 2008?
Need to "make nice" with management now (i.e., pray for mercy), after the big bold vote that Par must go?
That explains the big, wet *smooches* above from Tony and Chris to their bosses' backsides.
At least Keith Moyer and Anders Gyllenhaal walked, rather than serve as Avista hatchet men. Hard to envision any principle serious enough to get Barnes or Gillespie to just say no, given the carnage over which they have presided.
Yeah, yeah, fellas, we know: Wringing their hands all the while.
Such gnashing of teeth over what's become a very mediocre, irrelevant and gray newspaper. Management ignores what should be its strength -- enterprise and in-depth reporting -- and focuses on non-revenue-producing things like blogs and vita.mn and buzz.mn (kinda like your elderly aunt putting on fresh lipstick to hit First Avenue; pathetic and sad). There are much bigger issues here, but the lack of vision exhibited by anyone connected with that newspaper should be the first order of business. At least Harte has a vision, but it seems to me he's right about the newspaper losing touch with the local community. (Of course, one could argue whether there actually is a Twin Cities "community" anymore like there was 30 years ago, but that's a totally different discussion --and one no one on Portland is having, either.) That was a problem predating Avista's purchase, however, and I don't hear a lot of recognition from Strib staffers that there is indeed work to be done to improve the paper and position it as something people regard as being relevant.
Blueler has it right. Adam Plaatt's "dynamic" editorial page is so dynamic, it couldn'tt even muster up the courage to run a single editorial, commentary or letter to the editor on the Par debacle. From Albright to Gillespie is just Tweedledum to Tweedledee. What about the rest of the editorial stiffs (oops, I mean staff)? Albright will probably never miss a paycheck and wind up on Kramer's non-paper paper. Harte's nationwide search for a new editorial editor shouldn't go any further than Katherince Kersten's desk. The Strib should merge with the Bryn Mawr Bugle, and become the Stribugle, a deep digging, hard hitting shopper, free at Cub.
Dan Cohen
I agree with Tony.
Seems as if we're born into this world small enough as it is, and we spend far too much time just cutting each other down.
The personal venom you spew against Scott Gillespie doesn't pass for media insight of any kind, especially in a piece that should say more about why Susan Albright was sacked as editorial page editor.
With all the news on the table now, it would seem that Gillespie is doing Chris Harte a favor by sitting in as editorial page editor while a permanent replacement is sought. The managing editor's job will be there, waiting for him, when the interim gig is up.
Scott has as much integrity, news judgment and backbone now as he did in the 1990s when local journalists were hounding him for a job.
Back then, Gillespie stuck his neck out time and again by bucking the old tradition of looking outside Minnesota's borders when it came to hiring. Instead, Scott had the eye and network to find talented reporters and editors who grew up in Minnesota and toiled here at alternative weekly newspapers, monthly magazines, the Pioneer Press and the local office of The Associated Press.
The result for the Strib was a lot of good hires.
In early 2000, Scott was promoted at a relatively young age from his position as Strib business editor to a new job as assistant managing editor for local news. He had added to his reputation as a talent evaluator by reassigning certain staffers to beats and jobs where their once-hidden talent blossomed.
Two and a half years later, the then-executive editor, Anders Gyllenhaal, picked Gillespie as managing editor and the staff responded with genuine applause. When Gyllenhaal left for a job in Miami late last year, Scott applied for the top job but lost to Nancy Barnes.
In my book, Gillespie and Barnes are very much alike in their appreciation of hard news. They are both blue-chippers in that category and seem to have a good relationship. Neither of them should be smeared for not "taking a stand'' against the massive layoffs (more than 80 lost jobs in the newsroom) that started to occur soon after Gyllenhaal left for Miami and McClatchy Newspapers sold the Strib to private investors who made huge cuts in all departments.
It's a known fact in the newsroom that those were some of the toughest days Gillespie and Barnes ever had in journalism because they had to personally tell staff members that they were among those being cut or reassigned.
Gillespie has worked at the Star Tribune for about 20 years and enjoys very broad, but not universal, respect in the newsroom. No Strib editor is on a pedestal. But like Kent Gardner before him, Gillespie is the newsroom manager most likely to be approached by leaders of the Newspaper Guild when the union needs an honest hearing of a complaint. That sense of candor is truly welcome, especially at such a remarkable time in the Strib's history.
-Tony Kennedy, Star Tribune reporter
The editorial page has been one of the few dynamic areas of the paper in recent years. There has been real enterprise journalism going on and real thinking about regional/national competitiveness and how we are positioned for the future. I have been shocked at how often I would read things in an editorial or Sunday package that should have been in the Metro section, but never were.
The greater loss to the section has been the winnowing of staff from the various economic purges. I don't deny that global and national issues often have unique local relevance. But a depleted section needs to focus its resources, and if that's really what this is about"and I don't claim to know it's all as it appears"I agree with Chris Harte. I value the ST's take on the state of the city and region it specializes in over topics it is far less positioned to offer expertise.
Hopefully they don't resume editorializing about the weather.
Steve Brandt suggests that this move made more sense when Par was still around. He was known to have wanted Albright out. Does this support the speculation (admittedly rank speculation) that there is Ridder money behind Avista?
Picked up the phone and called Scott ... Deb's scoop is basically intact. He's the *interim* editor for up to 3 months - he expects to go back to ME when this is over, though skeptics will be skeptical.
He said his mandate from Chris Harte to make the editorials more local - said there was no ideological dimension in his discussions with Harte, though one can imagine begging off national stuff where the Strib has excoriated Bush does have an ideological dimension.
As for going back to ME from editorials, it might seem odd to cross back to the news side from edit, there is precedent at the Strib: Doug Tice went from conservative editorial guy to the Strib's politics editor. (To a fair degree of criticism.)
Scott wouldn't talk about Susan's leaving - more phone calls to be made there - but she will be at the paper until Oct. 12.
Will interim become permanent, rendering Deb's news 100% right-on? Does an ideological shift await Scott's successor? Stay tuned.
Well shut my mouth. The appointment of Scott as interim edit page editor has now been announced.
Well, DR sooner or later someone has to decide what business plan the Strib will follow.
Well it be the liberal editorial way--more government, more taxes and bash the Bushies--or will they make an attempt to truly be fair?
If conservative views are not important alternatives, then conservatives will opine that the Strib has no place on their must read list. Don't give me Kersten as an example of fairness. She just periodically throws out a jab or two at some lliberal who has lead with his jaw open and vulnerable.
Want a liberal paper? Then you will get liberal readers. When it comes to editorials and commentary, don't forget the moderates and conservatives. They are inclined to be conventional--they have longstanding, customary conventional reading habits, and while not newspaper afectionados, they often are regular readers of periodicals. Conservatives and moderates are being driven from the newspaper readership as part of a faulty business plan. Yes, also forget church and state: the editorial page has to sell as well. If it doesn't then why even bother with it?
The consumer, after all, is king. If they choose to walk away from a biased publication, they will. Ultimately, you are selling a service and can ill afford to rule out 40-45% of your potential readers.
By the way, if we want to read George Will we prefer to get it fresh--off the Washington Post. Ditto for David Brooks; the NYT is as easy to pull up as the Strib and the commentary comes sooner and in toto.
Never say never, but this rumor seemed to make much more sense when Par was still around.
Ouch.
Newspaper work can be painful, apparently.
"Making bones" with journalists (an increasingly vague definition) is nothing to retire on.
It's a bidness.
Luckily Barnes' hubby works in the HUGELY PROFITABLE West metro section.
We're certainly spending a lot of time discussing Gillespie's body parts or lack thereof.
It's absolutely sexist to refer to him as "emasculated" because a woman was promoted instead of him. If some male Strib editor had gotten that job, would you have said Gillespie was "emasculated when Eric Wieffering was promoted over him"? I doubt it.
But if a smart, capable woman -- who has amply proven herself at the Strib -- wins out, then suddenly the man is less than manly. Bullshit.
Look at Scott's career. Started as a reporter. Moved to a larger paper and was promoted steadily until he reached the No. 2 job in the newsroom. Then a fireball named Nancy Barnes arrived and got the top job instead of him.
Well, so what? Does that make him some kind of failure? I'd say not. He's the No. 2 guy at a top 20 newspaper. Though that doesn't carry the same cachet it might have a generation ago, or even five years ago, it's still more than most journalists ever achieve.
I don't blame Scott for anything he's done or hasn't done. So he followed corporate orders. Stop the presses!
I wonder when we'll get over the nearly meaningless phrase "six -figure salary." The differrence between, say, $100,000 and $999,999--both "six figure salaries"--is vast. The low end of six figures is middle class; the upper end is rich. About one in ten American workers earns at least $100,000 a year--the threshold level for six figures--which means that while they're in a minority it is not an exceptional one. A much, much smaller percentage earn the high-end of six figures. And the belief that a senior editor at a metropolitan daily could not find a different job that paid as well or better is debatable.
"Gillespie is well-known as an editor who has continuously lost vertebrae as he's ascended through the ranks and become more adept at avoiding controversy at all costs. Over the last few months, he made his bones with top management by following its staff whacking and restructuring orders to the letter, no matter who got hurt. Staffers who once considered him a friend have no doubt that he'd run the layoff truck over them if Chris Harte so ordered, rather than take a stand."
We won't quibble with the mixed metaphors of losing vertebrae and making one's bones because they both perfectly capture the situation with the Strib M.E. Too bad Gillespie wasn't more interested in making his bones with journalists -- which is what his job is supposed to be about. But that would require him to take a stand like editors at the L.A. Times or the San Jose Mercury-News and give up a six-figure salary for the sake of principle, news coverage and proper treatment of staffers.
Instead, he's clinging to what will be his last job at a six-figure circulation paper. Emasculated when Nancy was promoted over him for the top job, soon a eunuch for the equity partners to editorially order around.
Tom O--
Yeah it certainly is hard to rebut "Someone once said." They're usually an unimpeachable source. I mean, look at the way we responded when a bridge fell down: the money just poured forth. We don't even have to choose between fixing the one that fell down and making sure others don't fall down. Do we?
As for all the Tribune's "favorite social programs" being cut in 2003, I assume you mean the $185 million cut from education, the massive cuts in childcare for working adults, $400 million out of higher education, $140 million less for local government aid, and the raiding of hundreds of millions from the health care access fund specifically earmarked to provide health care to working families, even as more than 50,000 people were cut from the eligbility rolls of MinnesotaCare. It was good times all around and the Strib editorialists really were killjoys to bitch. I mean it's not like we've fallen behind the national average in job creation for the first time in decades since those cuts were made. Right?
If the Strib wants to shave the edges off its establishment liberalism I suspect it will alienate more current readers than attract new ones.
But this wouldn't be a business decision, right?
The whole paper is a "rage against the machine". What rage is there when you can predict a Star Tribune editorial's content a mile away. I wait for the election edition when it endorses all Democrats (except Jim Ramstad). I use to do a word search for "2003" (the year that all of the Tribune's favorite social programs were scaled back), and "Pawlenty" and of course if the readers would just rebel against Pawlenty and the evil conservative initiatives of 2003 the world would be a better place. Someone once said that Minnesota is the only state in the union that compains it does not pay enough taxes. They must have been reading the Strib editorials.
The Strib's editorial pages have always been a breath of fresh (yes; read: liberal) air. I would hate to see our once-forward-thinking Twin Cities lose that voice.
BTW, Deborah Rybak, it's great to see you and Lambert cranking out this stuff! Good work! (Seriously)
"corporate interference"? are you talking about editorial interference? or about, for example, decisions about how many people would be working for the newspaper?
And why not, given that it's populated with socialists.
rage against the machine?
what, in your opinion, is "the machine"?
Rybak: It's a figure of speech. Editorial was the one place in the paper that consistently tried to fight back against corporate interference.