Jim Moroney

An alert FrontBurnervian sends along a pic he took of a story in today's paper. Notice the photo credit under the picture. That would be the same Jim Moroney who is the chairman, president, and chief executive officer of A.H. Belo Corporation. It is a sad state of affairs when the CEO of a major metropolitan daily is dispatched to take pictures of a mishap at the Crazy Mouse. And, honestly, it's a pretty bad picture. The composition is lousy. The viewer is left wondering why he is looking at a fence when the story is about an accident on a roller coaster. Awhile back, the Chicago Sun-Times laid off all its photographers. Perhaps the News is considering a similar move, assigning all photo duties instead to its C-level executives. If that's the case, I think they deserve some training in how to use a camera.

Shares of A.H. Belo Corp. have fallen 62 percent in the last year. Revenues were down $3 million in the second quarter from the previous year. And Jim Moroney recently bought 27,000 more shares, which cost him about $150,000. If that's just a PR move, it ain't a cheap one.

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