Did Steve Blow really refer to the opening day of buyout packages at the DMN as “a blue day”? Well, he’s nothing if not a master of minimalism.
Yesterday evening at Louie’s at what otherwise would have been my crowd’s regular Thursday Happy Hour gathering, there was a less than happy show-up a couple of tables away. A half-dozen or more of the paper’s reporters, and at least one editor, trickled in to figure out what to do with their shiny new buyout offers from Robert “Li’l Bobby D aka The Shiv” Decherd. A former DMNer now in a much better job sent over a round of drinks but not sure it made a serious dent. A lawyer friend observed that most of the folks “have that deer-in-the-headlights look.” But maybe a few were looking to better visions of the future.
My own new idea is that, as many have observed, since the News is adjusting to downsizing its reporting staff by putting in more wire stories, the paper is actually going consumer-friendly to its readers. Cancel those subscriptions to The New York Times and Washington Post. You can read them for free in the DMN.
Wait. Isn’t that what’s called a portal? Genuis! Those Belo folks have known all along what they’re doing. Can I hear a “Content Provider”! Say Amen! Thangyew. Thangyewverramuch.
