When your newsroom leaders are faced with cuts, is your job on their list? Movie critics, you're on the list. Right at the top.
The Tampa Tribune revealed who on their staff is most expendable. I know, "expendable" sounds harsh. But it's one of those harsh realities. Here's how the St. Petersburg Times reported it:
The Tampa Tribune laid off five members of its newsroom Wednesday, including well-known movie critic Bob Ross . . . Janet Weaver, the paper's executive editor and vice president, said managers cut positions with an eye toward keeping strong local news coverage and enhancing the online product . . . The paper will no longer produce local movie criticism. It will run reviews from other sources, Weaver said.
Ross was with the newspaper for 21 years and is truly a recognizable journalist in this area, having regularly appeared on WFLA, the Tribune's TV station. Cutting Ross is proof that no movie critic is immune from being replaced with AP content.
My advice for you all. Quit the movie beat now and find a more local beat.
Comments (1)
Posted at www.thefutureofnews.com:
Two choices for metro journalists: Be the best or be local
To survive, most metro-area jourmalists will need to adopt the mindset that “all news is local,” to borrow from an observation made about politics by late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. Lucas Grindley notes an incident demonstrating that no movie critic is immune from being replaced with AP content. In fact, this is but one symptom of a much broader future problem for metro-area journalists. Unless the topic is specifically about a local issue, they must now compete against all other online writers on that topic, from any source in the English-speaking world. It’s not just movies. It is also editorials on domestic and foreign affairs, human interest stories, columnists, and much more. Readership will coalesce around the work of the most talented writers in the Anglosphere in a free market process that will show no particular deference to metro-area boundaries. So unless a writer is a national or world-class expert in their topic, it is safest to stick with local news stories and angles.
Posted by Steve Boriss | April 15, 2007 12:05 PM
Posted on April 15, 2007 12:05