The Political Whore

Today marks the first day of the Tampa Tribune’s new Mon-Fri one-news-section era. PIck one up and check it out and let me know what you think. In the meantime, here’s today’s top political and media news headlines, with updates daily (box, right, you know):

• They lined up before dawn to see their political hero,
• My vote for clueless teen of the year goes to this kid.
• And Sarah can raise some campaign cash, darn tootin’.
• Jim Greer, persona non grata.
• Seriously, an item in the Breaking News tbo.com blog about the Weinermobile coming to Lakeland?!?
• Max Hardcore gets hardcore prison time for porno conviction.
• Gore won in 2000 (again).
• Best tweet of the day: “laughterkey: Warning to all moose in the Clearwater area. SHE’S HERE. Run for your life.”
• Joe Biden plays the Sun Dome at USF on Wednesday.
• The I-4 corridor.
• Pulling apart the Yes on 2 arguments like a roasted chicken from Publix.
• The 7th Annual Blogger Boobie-thon (all for a good cause); local Out in Left Field once again bares it all for the cause, but you gotta pay to see it.
• Yes, the Tina Fey turn as Palin on SNL was hilarious, but for those who stayed tuned for another 5 minutes got treated to another example of why Kristen Wiig is the funniest player on the show today:

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After the jump I’ve got latest internal memo from Trib news chief Janet Coats on the reorganization of the daily’s newsroom in a combined newgathering operation with the broadcast folks at Newschannel 8 and the digital workers at tbo.com.

Lots of talk about platforms and finishing and such, but the hottest news for you info consumers isn’t in here: On Monday, multiple sources have told me, the Tribune will launch its reconfigured daily newspaper into one section of news/sports/whatever and a second section of classifieds/comics. The first tip about the changes to come in the daily print product came in Jeff Houck’s Food section column this morning:

SO LONG, FAREWELL, SEE YOU SUNDAY

One of my favorite ads on TV right now is the Dunkin’ Donuts commercial that starts with one of the characters singing the line, “You neglected to mention the sleeper sofa,” before breaking into an Egyptian slavelike moan. “I forgot all about the air hockey table,” the second character replies. More painful moaning, followed by images of possessions tumbling down an apartment staircase. The first character then finishes by singing, “Re-LUC-tant-LY hel-PING my friend MOVE!”

What does all this have to do with The Stew? Well, like George, Weezie and Lionel Jefferson, it’s time for us to move to that deluxe apartment in the sky-y-y, so to say.

On Sunday, this column and many of the features you read each week in the Flavor section will join with stories from the At Home section as well as fashion, parenting and pet columns, and articles each week in a new journalism condo we’re calling BayLife Magazine.

Not everything will be the same, unfortunately. As with all moves, (Gosh, this relocation metaphor is getting tiresome), Orlando-based columnists Pam Brandon and Anne-Marie Hodges, better known as The Divas of Dish, end their 20-month run with us. Their playful recipes were like a vacation for the taste buds. Their helping of sass and fun-loving attitude helped us remake the Flavor section earlier this year with a much more lighthearted tone.

We also say goodbye to Tony “Fatso” Siciliano, our king of barbecue and grilling, who joined after the Flavor section switched in March to a tab format. Thanks to his column, I’ve stolen more grilling tips than I’ll ever admit. We thank him for his work and wish him well with his “On the Grill” radio show each Saturday on WFLA 970 AM.

Jaden Hair’s Steamy Kitchen column will continue to appear weekly in BayLife Magazine, but Greg and Michelle Baker’s Culinary Sherpas column will run every other week.

“Recipes Lost & Found”? It’s making the move. “Consumers Ask”? Same. “Greasy Remote, “Cravings” and “Eat Their Words” will still run with the same regularity, too, just on Sunday instead of Wednesday.

All of which means - if I haven’t been clear - that the Flavor section will end its publication with the section you have in your hands today.

We at the Tribune all know it will be hard for you. Routines are always difficult to change, and the Flavor section has run on Wednesdays like clockwork since John McCain was a toddler. Flavor was a section you held on to, read during the week, shopped with on Saturdays and cooked with on Sundays. You and other readers have a relationship with Flavor. Recipes you clipped in 1968 are still in your files, just in case someone needs one they can’t find. As I wrote in March when we changed formats, I’ve always been honored to be a part of a section readers deeply cared about. To that end, we’ve tried to cover your life with food, not just about what was in the pan, on the plate or in your glass.

But this change is not only inevitable, it’s necessary.

While we’re all up in this change thing, feel free to drop into my food blog, The Stew. I’ll be posting items there more often - especially on Wednesdays when you want them the most. And the food channel on TBO.com with the catchy address - www2.tbo.com/static/sections/ tbo-life-food/ - will feature more stories, podcasts and videos as well.

If you want to chat about the changes, I’ll be glad to talk or e-mail with you. I’d also love to hear your ideas about what food stories you’d like me to write.

The Tribune made some cuts this week, four editorial employees that I’ve been able to sniff out so far with the biggest name being editorial page columnist Joe Brown. Embedded in the Coats memo that follows are the names of others who made the latest cut and still have news jobs:

(more…)

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My story in the print edition of CL this week details the personnel changes and newsroom reconfigurations going on at the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times. It focuses on intern Jessie DaSilva, who blogged about Coats newsroom explanation of how she hopes to combat the tough times that led her to lay off 11 editorial staffers two weeks ago. The full story is here.

Bonus cut: DaSilva would agree only to an e-mail interview, and here is her entire exchange with me about the reaction to her blog, which supported Coats’ plan and was seen by some as either naive or uncaring about the reporters who lost their jobs. My questions were, Did you have any hesitation about posting your thoughts on the layoffs and realignments?
Any regrets?
Has management at the paper had any reaction to your blog? In the past, I know from some reporters they have told folks not to discuss newspaper business in personal blogs.
What is your reaction to all the comments and reaction your post attracted?
Are you the incoming Alligator editor? If so, what lessons do you take back to that paper from this realignment?

And DaSilva’s e-mail back to me: (more…)

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I am completely digging on the story in this morning’s Tribune about Karen Peoples, the Tampa Housing Authority board member who can’t seem to follow the rules of her own agency. This from John Allman’s tale:

Tampa Housing Authority commissioner Karen Peoples responded angrily this morning to a Tampa Tribune report that she is being evicted for violating federal housing guidelines.

“Whoever was responsible for this article, may God be with you when the time comes,” Peoples said near the end of the authority’s monthly board meeting. “This was not necessary.”

The authority this week began eviction proceedings against Peoples, who has been in violation since November 2007 of federal Department of Housing and Urban Development guidelines that dictate the apartment size a resident can occupy.

Peoples is a single woman living in a four-bedroom apartment at C. Blythe Andrews, a north Tampa housing property. She has refused three offers to move to a one-bedroom apartment since January. The authority has more than 200 people waiting for a four-bedroom apartment at her complex, and authority President Jerome Ryans said Peoples has run out of chances.

Reading the story, however, raises an even more important question than who the hell appointed this broad to the board and when are they going to kick her off of it: namely, why doesn’t tbo.com provide ANY hyperlinks in its news stories, even to its own coverage? Why do I have to take 20 minutes searching through the rest of the site to find the initial story that Peoples was bitching about??

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Inside the layoffs at the Trib, as reported by intern Jessica DaSilva. Commenters praise her passion (admirable) while criticizing her spelling (lamentable). As for Editor Janet Coats’ quote that the Tampa Tribune is an “add-on” to TBO.com, not vice versa: Is this a bravely candid acknowledgment of the reality of today’s media, or (like Jessica’s spelling) the death knell for journalism as we know it? Or both? Opinions vary, but to newspaper editors everywhere, the debate is familiar.

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Tampa Tribune Editor Janet Coats will meet with her restless troops next week to discuss what they have all been awaiting/dreading: the future of the newsroom. She sent this e-mail to her staff today:

From: Coats, Janet E.
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008
Subject: Newsroom staff meetings

We’ll have staff meetings on Tuesday to talk about plans for the second half of the year. We’ll talk about the subject that is foremost in your minds – job reductions. But we’ll also talk about the new structure for the newsroom and the ways we see the newspaper and TBO.com changing in the coming months.

We’ll also try to draw a road map for the next few months. We live in uncertain times, and there’s not much I can do to change that. But I will try to give you a little better sense of the decisions we face in the next few months, and how we’re going to work through them to create the best opportunities to do good journalism.

Bonus cuts: 54 take buyout at Media General Fla operations; Closing the South Tampa office

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Part of the other shoe has dropped over on Parker Street; sources tell me that 75 employees in the Tampa Tribune’s advertising department were let go earlier this week. (UPDATE: the official word from Media General was that it was 21, according to a story published by the Trib on Thursday after this blog post was written.) No editorial cuts were announced, but today, the head of Media General’s combined operations in Tampa (the Trib, Newschannel 8, tbo.com and other properties) wrote to the staff that more layoffs are coming in the next few weeks. Here is a copy that was supplied to me by a source who requested anonymity. (I left a message to speak with Schueler about the cuts and will let you know when/if I get to interview him.):

From: FCG_Communication
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Subject: A message from John Schueler

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be wrapping up the voluntary buyout program we offered. Out of the 650 eligible for the buyout, as of today 54 will be leaving us. There may be a few more as individuals make their personal decisions. We appreciate all of their many contributions and wish them well. They will be missed.

As we stated before, if the voluntary buyout program does not produce the necessary reduction to align our expenses with our current revenue expectation, we will need to follow up with an involuntary program. These plans are being announced within departments and to individual employees as they are finalized. Some are happening now and others will occur over the next few weeks.

We realize how difficult and uncomfortable this is for everyone. We have an obligation to review our processes, products and services and then align our resources with revenue. As a result, we have to make tough decisions and develop priorities. We must continue doing the things that are most important to us and to the communities we serve. By taking this approach, we expect to retain our market position, support our journalistic mission and be capable of leveraging a rebounding economy.

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OK, the closing of the Tampa Tribune’s South Tampa office on Bay-to-Bay Boulevard had been planned for some time; I recall hearing whisper about it before the latest announcement about the latest round of buyouts and the like. But still, this is not a good symbol of a healthy MSM in town:

Word is that the office actually stayed open a bit longer than anticipated. Its reporters, who write for the daily and the South Tampa News weekly, have been transferred to the nearby downtown headquarters on Parker Street.

(Since I live in that ‘hood, I’m sorta hoping something cool goes in that space. We could use a good restaurant on Bay-to-Bay; right now only Pappas and take-out from Cappy’s does the trick on that stretch. But since this space isn’t already tricked out for restaurant use, I’m betting that a mortgage or real estate brokerage will go in there once the market improves a bit.)

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They’re not the only Big Media company looking at this, but the Tampa Tribune is in the midst of outsourcing some advertising layout jobs to India, reports The Business Journal:

“We’re recreating jobs [in the production department], and everybody in the department already knows what’s happening,” said Denise Palmer, president and publisher of the Tribune. “This is not news for any of our employees, but we haven’t yet settled on a final number.”

Most of the cuts come as a result of the outsourcing that will take place in the Tribune’s downtown office, Palmer said, but some cuts also could take place at the paper’s Sebring office where its Highlands Today is published. The move to outsourcing should be completed by September.

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Tampa Bay is down to one major daily newspaper classical music critic as the Tampa Tribune’s Kurt Loft has given notice that he is leaving for a job at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Loft told me yesterday evening that he was sad to leave the paper but excited about the opportunity he will be given at PwC, where he will carry the title Lead Editor.

Loft worked at the Tribune for 27 years and covered science, classical music and restaurants. He did not take the buyout offer that the newspaper gave to more than 630 employees.

“I’m going to miss the beats,” he said of the unusual mix of subjects that he had worked into his newsroom responsibility. “It’s been a great mix.”

Loft also said he told the newspaper in his resignation letter that “I will always be a goodwill ambassador for the Trib. In its prime, it was the heart and soul of the city.”

Loft also bemoaned the impact on the local arts if the Trib, as expected, doesn’t replace him. Many state grants are sought on the basis of news coverage, and without classical music previews and reviews, the Florida Orchestra could suffer. “I think it’s tragic,” Loft said. “I feel very bad for the Orchestra. For all the arts, you’ve got to have an experienced reporter to have a dialogue between the organization and the community.”

In full disclosure, I must comment that I am close friends with Kurt, have been for 20 years, and will sorely miss his writing in the Tampa daily.

He joins several other past Trib scribes at PriceWaterhouse who left the daily over the past few years, including pop music critic Philip Booth and computer-assisted reporting guru Doug Stanley. In February, Trib business reporter Dave Simanoff also quit to join PwC. Loft said three or four other Trib reporters gave notice last Friday along with him to take jobs at PwC but their names could not yet be confirmed.

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