Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Media / News Bites Alison Draper on Alison True
Posted by Michael Miner on 06.29.10 at 02:46 PM
Alison Draper, publisher of the Reader, has talked a little with me about the decision she and Creative Loafing CEO Marty Petty came to to fire this paper's editor, Alison True. "It was made with tremendous thought, and regardless of my personal feelings for Alison True and her years of amazing service, I stand by my decision," Draper said. "It is nothing short of a leadership issue." True "was highly successful leading the paper through years and years of amazing coverage and she carried the paper through difficult times," but in Draper's view she wasn't the person best equipped to lead the Reader into an uncertain future.
"The best and most seasoned editors are finding it most difficult to function in the new environment," said Draper. "This is a very complex job. You've got to be able to step out of the traditional silos and look at the business through different windows."
Silos? Historically, said Draper, the editorial and business sides of the Reader operated independently. "There has not been collaboration and strategic planning done together. So again, you asked me, was I looking for followship? I'm not looking for followship. I'm looking for innovative, well-rounded leadership that responds to the current and future needs of the business, not only to the past."
I had suggested to Draper that followship, not leadership, was where she and Petty thought Alison True fell short. No one who's worked here for the past several years—as ownership changed twice, as the company controlling us entered and emerged from bankruptcy, as budgets and staff were slashed, as the news hole shrank, yet editorial standards remained high and the remaining staff continued to believe in what they were doing—could doubt True's leadership. But perhaps she simply wasn't Petty and Draper's cup of tea.
Or as God once explained to Moses, the right leader to navigate the wilderness isn't necessarily the best person to lead the Israelites into the promised land.
Not that the promised land beckons from anywhere nearby. Draper pointed to the recent PricewaterhouseCoopers prediction that ad spending nationally will increase annually from 2011 through 2014 yet in 2014 still be 9 percent less than it was in 2007. In 2009 ad spending plummeted 15.2 percent from 2008, and Draper said the Reader wasn't an exception to this collapse. "The editor of the Reader," said Draper, "has to work closely with sales to find innovative ways to take our fair share of the dollars that are shrinking and shrinking quickly." She promised me that she wouldn't "blur" the line between editorial and advertising, but she would "push" it. The distinction was clearer to her than it was to me.
I'm being asked at the office, I told Draper, why they fired Alison, and I reply that I don't know much more than anyone else does, but I think she might have been seen as someone too protective of the Reader's legacy to be the agent of change needed to take it into the future. Is that correct? I asked her.
"Yes," Draper said. "It is."
True came to the Reader 26 years ago and was its editor for the past 16 years. It had never occurred to me that she'd outlived her usefulness — the idea makes me shake my head. I thought she'd tenaciously stood between her changing cast of bosses and threadbare but still committed staff trying to do right by both. Draper said she believes this paper's "core assets" — which she identified as “our distinctive journalistic advantage, strong loyalty amongst our core readers, and our rich archives"—are what the Reader must "build upon and sustain," and a new editor will do better at that than the old. I think the old editor did just fine with those assets and would have been eager to build upon them if given the resources. But I am not the new sheriff in town.
True was fired at the corner Starbucks Friday morning, at what she was told would be a brief strategic meeting with Draper prior to a staff meeting at the Reader. Everyone who attended the staff meeting walked away stunned by Draper's announcement that True was out. But it began on a celebratory note: The Best of Chicago issue had just been published, and it was the Reader's fattest, most successful issue in years, a triumph True and Draper should have been sharing in.
True comments, "I was given very clear communication that strategic conversations were to be reserved till after the Best of Chicago issue came out. Everyone on the business side was exclusively focused on making a successful sales effort. Now I think what they were really saying was that strategic conversations had to be reserved till after I was gone."
Comments (75)
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First off, thank you Michael Miner for writing this. On the one hand, given the heavy response to your posting on the original announcement, this was needed. On the other, it had to be hard to have this conversation with Draper and then discuss it--as I can judge only from a distance--so fully and honestly. I've always admired your work; this ups my estimation.
And, Oh My God, where have we heard this before? The stuff about those nasty old "silos" separating advertising and editorial and whatnot. Piffle, Draper says, let's just sweep that away and see what happens. And if that means canning that rarest of creatures--a highly talented, hard-working, dedicated editor respected by all--small loss.
We'll get a clearer picture of where this is all headed when the Reader publishes its first poster of an NHL player in a skirt.
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"She promised me that she wouldn't "blur" the line between editorial and advertising, but she would "push" it. The distinction was clearer to her than it was to me."
That's because it's clear as mud. These elaborate webs of metaphors--silos? new windows? what?--mean nothing.
I don't know what to say except that I'm sorry you guys are going through this. It must be hard to report on this as it unfolds in your own office, and I think your reporting is brave, as it was in the previous rounds of layoffs--though it's sad you have to don the role of a quasi-ombudsman again.
I remember how hard it is to put together Best of Chicago, what with all the reviews to be coordinated and networking with businesses and everything. Maybe I'm being cynical--perhaps justifiably so, given the circumstances--but it seems like the plan was "Hey, let's make Alison do all this super hard work getting the biggest issue of the year out, and then hilariously fire her for her efforts." Good tiiiimes.
Probably sucks to lose someone you like, but when a paper isn't effective anymore it's time for the people at the top to go. I hope MORE alt-weeklies see this and take action.
If Alison Draper wants the Reader to be Time Out Chicago, it's a little a late for that. That market is already cornered--by TOC--which is a pretty snarky, vapid, thin read. Reading between the lines of Draper's statements to you, it sounds like True is out because the Reader's overlords intend it to become just so--snarky, vapid, and thin. But, I guess, somehow cool, hip, and sellable. In other words, the Reader as we know it is probably about to die.
As someone who knew Marty Petty when she was a great protector of the editorial/advertising wall, I'm surprised that she would be a party to this.
Hmm. Reading between the lines I don't see "cool, hip, and sellable," because this sounds more like structure and not style. But it's just a guess, and not a very educated one.
The fact that Draper uses the term "silo" to (negatively) describe the current state of editorial responsibility at the Reader--at all--feels like it tells one all they should know about this situation. It's the wrong model to apply to journalism. If editorial function weren't somewhat free of the timetables and demands of commerce then it wouldn't be journalism at all. Period.
I don't even think this is a particularly idealistic thing to say--it's just mechanics. I know it is still possible to put out a paper that isn't greased up into one big ball of selling--I think it's even possible to publish a paper that isn't like that and make money doing it. (For one thing, it has the virtue of novelty in this RedEye/TOC market.) I also know it's possible because I think Alison managed to achieve it. Which makes it all the weirder that she was fired.
Silos! Wth.
In the end newspapers, like all of America is a business. A business that has gone through some major downturns in the last decade. Not only due to the economy and the onset of electronic mediums, but because perhaps because it was doing something wrong. I am a fan of the paper, but I must admit it is only a partial love. There have been many times when I looked through the paper and found nothing that would hold my interest through the first few sentences...
Is this True's fault? One could say no, she didn't write all the articles, but she was in charge of the content. She was the gatekeeper of what news made it and which didn't. She chose, just as she had for the last 16 years.
Now it seems that a "new sheriff", as you put it, is in town and has decided that the head deputy may not be what is best for the town. Was she a hard worker? I am sure. Was she your friend and ally? From the looks of it, yes. But the simple fact is, the town was in trouble and the new sheriff may just be looking to save the town.
Sometimes you have to make the hard decisions to ensure growth. Perhaps her job will end up being the cost to save all the other jobs. It is hard to say from such a short period of time since the incident, but it seems doubtful a new Publisher would make such a decision on a whim. Either way, you have to trust that the new sheriff is trying to keep you an everyone else safe, or move to another town. Perhaps a nice glossy town, like Time Out...
People with access to axes and grinders usually come out at times like this so I'm not surprised to see the TOC haters here. As usual, they're running-and-gunning with statements like "Nice glossy paper but blurry lines" and not providing any actual evidence for their claims. Or innuendo. But hey, never let the facts get in the way of a good series of adjectives!
This sounds like Draper is covering her own ass, and her strategy sounds like the wrong one to win back readers like me and my friends. (Time Out, by the way, is not a big success in Chicago.)
I feel sorry for Alison True, but frankly her Reader stopped being the paper my friends and I loved about ten years ago, even before the purchase by Creative Loafing. From the outside, the Reader has appeared to be in constant change, always searching for a new identity and increasingly pushing straight opinion over reporting (the wonderful Ben Joravsky being the most obvious exception to this trend). I don't know any other editor who could have survived the massive declines in readership. How long could True hold on?
If Creative Loafing wants us to pick up the Reader again, it should concentrate on content, not editorial serving the needs of advertisers. In fact, the Reader should go back to what it did right a long time ago: Tell us interesting stories about interesting people. Chicago is a rich and varied city, much richer and varied than any other Creative Loafing city, and the Reader needs to reflect that. I'm not talking about long stories. Whose idea was it, for example, to get rid of the short stories on the spread with the dates on it?
Just because something involves Twitter or Facebook doesn't make it interesting, Ms. Draper. We can get that (and better) from many different sources today. Hey, Ms. Petty, seems like you need to fire someone else . . . quick.
Mike: maybe you could clarify the above assertion, "massive declines in readership..." We know this is true of display advertising and certainly classified, but is it really true of distribution? Do you have numbers for actual copies distributed over, say, the last five years?
@MrSmith "I'm not surprised to see the TOC haters here"
I love Time Out! Longtime subscriber. It's really well done, for what it is. But what it is is bite-size (Red Eye-size?) bits of consumables and a blurry mash-up of advertorial.
I've never suspected the critics of anything but faithful service to the reader, but still there is that page of "sponsored" content toward the front of the book, whatever that means, plus routine specials like "The best gyms and spas in Chicago!" (Read as, "Let's sell a bunch of gym and spa ads!")
The Reader and Time Out are obviously differnt pubs with difference audiences, and that's not a bad thing. The Reader -- at least, the Reader of old -- would never have a "sex" issue, and Time Out will never do any investigative reporting more rigorous than covering the push for food trucks. (A noble fight. I raise my fist.) But while I'm thrilled with Time Out's success, you cannot deny it's come at the expense of the Reader. So be it. Survival of the fittest and all that. As the Reader declines, however, we should not be surprised if a publisher were to point a finger at the seemingly thriving Time Out and say, "Why can't you be more like that? Why you gotta stay in your traditional silos?"
All the things you cite - a "Sponsored" content page (which incidentally is just a fancy ad) and editorial/ad adjacencies - are industry-standard, par-for-the-course methods of doing business in the magazine and newspaper worlds and they don't interfere with the edit/ad wall. When done well, they offer value to the reader and advertiser and neither corrupts the other. TOC does it, the Reader does it (go check out the ads running in the Events and Music sections of this site for proof), Esquire does it, etc.
Argue the quality of the material if you like - and, sure, TOC's editorial take isn't everyone's cup of tea - but the implication above - intentional or not - was that there was something underhanded afoot in their methods. And that's just not true.
Nope, nothing underhanded -- just ahead of the game, and I suspect well ahead of where Alison True wanted to play. I have no doubt it's all industry standard. But the industry sucks right now.
Interesting what a different (and not particularly nice) tone this discussion has from that under Mike's original report of Alison's firing on Friday. I was out of the country for the past week-plus and so wound up reading Mike's initial report, the many thoughtful comments it engendered, his follow-up above, and these additional comments all for the first time this evening. It is certainly possible to decry this shameful and foolish act by this month's "management" and to criticize the ridiculous and self-caricaturing corporate speak without denouncing Time Out Chicago, an excellent publication with its own and different purpose. If the plan of the latest owner/investors is to try to replicate Time Out Chicago then they are on a fool's errand because TOC already exists and has a deep-pocketed owner-investor. That they clearly wish to abandon the serious sides of The Reader's purpose is the great shame here. My guess is that they, I am sure with the "help" of some well-paid "consultants," have absolutely no idea *what* they want to do except to try to transform their gobbledygook into some kind of practice and make their work seem "daring" and "important." What do they care? They have no concern about the paper, its legacy, or the city and region it covers and serves. And they are being well-paid and will continue to be so for as long as they keep some form of the ship afloat. Tossing out a leader of intelligence and integrity is a necessary first step for them on their voyage to nowhere.
I feel the need to repeat my posting in response to Michael Miner's first story as the interview with Alison Draper only confirms my suspicions..... It just shows what short-sighted bureaucrats do when they can't think of anything else. Alison True has seen the Reader through many changes and restructures over the past twenty five years and has always managed to make this mainstay of Chicago journalism feel fresh and relevant while also keeping readership and advertising levels up. My guess is that Ms Draper felt threatened by Alison True's abilities and convinced Ms Petty that firing her was the only way. Like I said at the top, this is what people without any sense of creative vision do...
My God, she's Lindsay Naegle. Maybe she can get Poochie the Rockin' Dawg to edit the thing. Only, make him, oh...8 percent more "in your face."
All of Chicago's newsprint products are terrible now, and all are run by the most awful possible people.
The emphasis in some of these comments on the need for a healthy business model for the Reader, one integrated with editorial and designed to help the publication grow, seems misplaced. There's nothing wrong with growth in itself. But as a Reader reader, I don't care about growth in itself. I'd rather see a viable product that just plunks along financially but that provides a space for serious journalism. Apparently, this cannot be. If so, well, crap. If the market won't allow this, there's something wrong with the market.
And why can't the Creative Loafing people just flat-out say what they intend to do? Just tell their staff and the rest of us, for Chrissake. And in plain detail, rather than leaving us to parse their dated corp-speak.
Please, Pelham, the only way to make the Reader successful again is by improving quality. You want people to read it, right? Anyone remember when you couldn't even find a single copy of the Reader left on a Friday night? I do. And don't be unfair to Lindsey Naegle, gihant: Alison Draper doesn't appear to have any vision other than wanting to buy time and get paid.
Look at where Draper comes from: She was the publisher of a dismal free daily called "Quick," which was Dallas' version of RedEye until it failed and went weekly (a scary site at http://www.quickdfw.com/), and then she became the marketing director of a seafood company. Maybe she plans to hand out the Reader on street corners and say, "Would you like fries with that?"
Reading her quotes, you get the sense that Draper was intimidated by Alison True's presence alone, rather than the job she did. I'm not saying she didn't have a reason, but on the face of it insecurity is a terrible thing to base decisions on.
A Dallas media columnist put it this way: "You know why I always loved Alison? (Used to work with her at the Dallas Observer.) Because she has no problem lying to my face and telling me it’s for my own good."
http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2008/07/2…
Marty Petty, however, has a solid background as a journalist and a publisher. Please, Ms. Petty, you must understand the importance of content to the long-term success of a publication, especially a storied publication like the Chicago Reader. The Reader needs quality content, and entrusting its future to a publisher's dare is not the way to go, especially a publisher with a lousy track record.
More and more, visiting the Reader site is like visiting grandma in the hospice -- I love you, but I can't stand to see you like this.
-- MrJM
Heh. Yeah, Abrams and that awful Jane Hirt person (whom the Clear Channel buffoons decided should actually run the Trib's newsroom. And hey, look what a great job she's doing, with her demographic charts, her focus groups, and her consultant's reports.
Why are these people in the news business at all? Serious question. Isn't there more money in potato chips? Or seafood? Or Poochie The Rockin' Dawg? It almost seems like they *hate* journalism and want to wreck it.
When the Reader's business collapsed, it wasn't because the quality of the paper's content had declined one tick. But "improving quality" is somehow going to bring all that money back? Come on. The conditions of the marketplace for print media aren't rewarding quality. They're hardly rewarding anything at all.
I'm not saying quality content is optional. I work at the Reader, and the institutional culture here will never permit an "Eh, whatever" attitude, not till the new owners fire every last one of us. What I'm saying is that it's not enough by itself. Quality content didn't keep Craigslist from draining away the Reader's huge reservoir of classifieds money, for instance.
I'd point out that those bygone days when you couldn't find a Reader on a Friday night were also days when you couldn't read a newspaper on your phone.
The rule now is "do more with less," and given how much the Reader is still doing, and how well, and with how little, I am damn proud of every one of my colleagues. Alison True has been a huge part of making it all happen.
Lynn Becker is probably right. The Reader is now owned by a hedge fund that lost a huge chunk of money when Creative Loafing went bankrupt--it was CL's chief creditor in that sordid affair. This hedge fund will of course eventually sell the Reader, because it's not in the business of running newspapers, but first it wants to make some of its money back. So it isn't good enough for the Reader to simply maintain. Growth is necessary, so that some of the resulting profits can be pocketed by the new owners before they move on.
If I were trying to create growth, though, I wouldn't fire someone who's earned the loyalty of so many editors, reporters, critics, proofreaders, designers, photographers, illustrators, and other contributors to the Reader. People still come first in this business. There's not yet a way to make an automated newspaper, and when there is, no one but other robots will want to read it.
This is Hugh Hart weighing in from Los Angeles. I wrote for The Reader in the 90s and fondly remember Alison as the best possible "audience" for my stories: sharp, tough, friendly and perpetually on hand to guide the piece to a well-formed finish. It's a total drag to learn she's been axed and I wish her the best of luck, not that she'll need it. Class act.
I am left raising an eyebrow by the amount of conjecture, speculation and opinion that is being filed here, and in the previous blog, as if it was fact. As if it was gospel. Due to Ms. True's dismissal, many of you have automatically assumed that the Chicago Reader will lose its way and become Time Out Chicago or Redeye or fill-in-the-blank. What a slap in the face to Kiki Yablon. Let's look at the facts. Correction: let's look at the fact. Ms. True was let go. She's gone. That's it. Period. The future is unwritten for both Ms. True and the Reader. All else is unfounded romanticism, emotional upheaval and paranoia of Glenn Beck-like proportions. Run to the hills, it's the death of journalism! For chrissakes. I too I'm sad to see Ms. True's career at the Chicago Reader end this way. However, I'm not ready to predict what will happen in the wake of current events. Perhaps, those of you who have boldly pontificated about the direction the Reader will take - now that Ms. True is no longer present - will be so kind as to give me this week's winning lottery numbers or let me know who will win the World Series so I can place bets in Vegas. Or you can continue to carry your torches, shake your pitchforks in the air and continue to bellow about things which you have little knowledge. Once again, I am sorry to see Ms. True be removed. I wish her the best. I also wish the Chicago Reader the best.
Very well said, Altgiant. One would think that people would at least wait to see who is named as a replacement before they start drawing conclusions. For all anybody knows, it could be someone tremendously respected by everyone who has posted here. I think your Glenn Beck comparison is right on the money (I'm not referring to everyone who has posted on the two threads, just those who have immedietely assumed they know that the decision was made for the specific purpose of decreasing the quality of the publication).
I really don't understand why so many people here think that this is an indication that the Reader is going to go in the direction of Redeye or Time Out Chicago. That would clearly not make good business sense. And it is exactly the opposite of what Draper said. As the article states: "Draper said she believes this paper's 'core assets' — which she identified as 'our distinctive journalistic advantage, strong loyalty amongst our core readers...'". I know many people apperently have trouble understanding what they call "ridiculous and self-caricaturing corporate gobbledygook" but this does seem to be a clear statement that she plans to strive for the same level of journalistic excellence. I don't know what else she would mean by "our distinctive journalistic advantage". And this is further supported by the statement "strong loyalty amongst our core readers...". The core readers of the paper pick it up because of its generally very good to excellent unique articles about the city, especially the aggressive and comprehensive reporting about its politics. That is what causes there to be a loyal and core readership. Obviously, I don't think anyone can say for sure whether Draper was sincere in that statement. But at least it should cause the people who have posted here to be more at ease than before they saw it. I haven't seen a whole lot of evidence, however, that many people even were able to interpret it correctly. Somehow it seemed to get translated into people's minds as The Reader turning into RedEye or Time Out Chicago.
I don't think anyone here knows why this change was made. Its certainly possible that Draper just wants someone she hired in the position so she can claim credit for anything that occurs from now on. Or the reasons she stated may be genuine. Obviously, there is a tendency of journalists who have been around for awhile to resist new ideas. That has been obvious just from reading the comments here in the past few days. I have know idea whether this was the case with True or not. I don't know her. I know that the Chicago Reader has nearly always been consistently good (at least in print) for the entire time I have been reading it. Numerous articles spotlight something about a particular issue that cannot be found anywhere else. And while the articles normally come from a liberal perspective they generally are not blindly ideological (its coverage of the Wal-Mart controversy notwithstanding) and do not distort the reasoning from the other side. So True clearly is a good editor. But that doesn't mean she is the best person for the job at this point. I'm not saying she isn't. But nobody here knows what is going on behind the scenes so, as Altgiant said, it really doesn't make sense for people to have had made the grand condemnations of the move and the certain pronouncements that it was made because Draper and her bosses don't want the publication to continue to have the degree of journalistic quality it currently does.
I think altgiant needs to read Philip Montoro's comment again and again and again.
"If I were trying to create growth, though, I wouldn't fire someone who's earned the loyalty of so many editors, reporters, critics, proofreaders, designers, photographers, illustrators, and other contributors to the Reader. People still come first in this business. There's not yet a way to make an automated newspaper, and when there is, no one but other robots will want to read it."
Dear Alison Draper: I found this explanation for why the Chicago Reader was so successful. "The Reader developed a new kind of journalism, ignoring the news and focusing on everyday life and ordinary people."
That doesn't describe the Reader I see today, unless that ordinary person has started a rock band.
@ aformerfan
I agree with you, pretty much. Good points. I was only trying to make the point that good journalism shouldn't have to depend on making a bundle of money for the owners. But, as you say, growth and improvement at this stage are probably essential for the Reader to stay alive. Separately, those are terrific glimpses at Draper's dismal and disturbing background. Thanks.
@ altgiant
We are left to speculate about the Reader's future because Creative Loafing hasn't told us what's on their mind. Why the hell can't they? Is it a matter of national security? Could it be a competitive thing, some secret formula for distilling even more mindless media fluff? Absent a clear statement of intention and having seen this sort of multi-stage media crappification before in Chicago, we're entitled to be alarmed.
And what Philip Montoro points out about the hedge fund folks trying to squeeze the Reader to get some of its money back sounds about right. What gets me--as it bugged me with the juvenile horrors perpetrated at the Tribune--is why staff and readers have to just sit back and take it. Fine, so you have organized money on one side trying to lay down the law. That's their right. But two other parties are involved here--the people who put out the Reader and the people who like it the way it is and the way it was. Conceivably, we could rally our forces in some way and tell the owners that they're just screwed and they need to get over it and give us our Reader back.
This tendency instead to just cower and moan over our terrible, irreversible fate at the whim of "owners" and creditors sucks.
Look, the situation with the Reader isn't really that mysterious. It's like this. The owners aren't newspaper people; they're not marketing guys. They're bankers. They're the ones who foolishly lent Creative Loafing tens of millions of dollars to buy the Reader, and they're the ones who've gotten stuck with the wreckage when Creative Loafing piled itself onto a reef. They don't *want* to be in the alt-weekly business. What they want is to spiff the Reader up into some sort of attractive package so that some big buyer will take it off their hands. In that light, they initially made a bunch of promises about their plans: repair the damage Creative Loafing caused, increase the editorial budget, bring in a professional news guy as the publisher, restore the Reader to something like its former glory, etc, etc. Well, now they think that approach isn't going to work for them, and they figured it would be easier to get rid of Alison and install somebody else as editor than it would be to keep their commitments.
The question is what happens next. Now we get all this corporate bullshit from Ms. Draper about "pushing" at the firewall between editorial and business. I refuse to believe that anybody left at the Reader, from Kiki Yablon on down, would go along with that. I don't think we have to look forward to Mike Miner's Taco Bell News Bites. What's more alarming, if you want to be alarmed, is that Draper's talk sounds to me like desperation. The drift of what she told Mike is that the Reader's remaining assets are its brand and its archives, which in practice may translate into firing the staff and turning the Reader into an outsourced Gawker-style online site edited by a couple of freelancers in Des Moines, with the archives hidden behind a paywall.
As for what can be done about it -- well, if you've got thirty million dollars burning a hole in your pocket, I am absolutely certain these guys would be eager to talk to you.
"Silos"? Oh, dear.
Altgiant, I am left wondering: for which of the Reader's competitors do you work?
There are 4 critical mentions of Time Out in 111 comments in two posts about Alison True, all mild and/or one line jokes.
There are more scolding these mentions in dramatic, overblown terms - including a swarm of twitter posts saying Reader comments are "taking a **** on Time Out".
This is an exaggeration which borders on lying. Mere criticism is not hatred, unreasonable denouncing or "taking a ****".
Those who repeat the false meme indicate their own comments are made in bad faith. Sadly that includes some Chicago media figures spreading it on Twitter, who should really know better.
So, let's review. The Reader's core assets are its "distinctive journalistic advantage, strong loyalty amongst our core readers, and our rich archives." But protecting the legacy that established that advantage, inspired that loyalty, and produced those archives, that's an obstacle to capitalizing on the Reader's core assets. Ms. Draper, what silo is your head stuck in?
And don't use the word "our" when describing the Reader's core assets. You had nothing to do with them.
Well said, MikeL. We all know what silo Draper has stuck her head in.
The Reader needs to capitalize on the assets that made it strong. Unfortunately, how many people remember a strong Reader?
Draper should go. Her silly talk has made a bad situation much worse.
MikeL, your unnecessarily condescending tone aside, why would the old guard be the best preservers of the Reader's legacy (distinctive journalism, reader loyalty, archives,) when that's the crew that allowed the paper to go down the tubes? The slide happened prior to the sale. It CAUSED the sale. Isn't that what Roth was quoted as saying? Something like "we had no idea what to do with it next." (Printed in a post-sale article.)
One of the old guard's biggest failings was bringing in a core group of buddies who would prove to never change, never leave, and never offer any unique benefit to the paper... but who managed to keep the loyalty, against all reason, of the original owners. If there'd been a better flow of new blood or fearless thinking in leadership positions, the Reader may have found itself better able to roll with the changes that have pummeled the industry.
I challenge you to find an average reader, or advertiser, who gives a damn or believes that Alison's departure will affect the paper as it stands now. This forum is skewed towards fellow writers (and some sentimental former or present employees who're interested in preserving the old office culture) and isn't representative of anything larger. The biggest changes to the paper have been foisted upon it by market influences, and the chief editor's firing will have no effect on the paper's look, feel, or content. Current leadership is looking out for the health of the paper... which, even if you love the legacy, isn't dependent on an individual (one who inherited a successful 20-year-old paper, changed little, and instituted no new strategies.) It's petty to imagine anyone would fire an otherwise good editor because they were intimidated by her.
The thing that made the Reader so cool to begin with are the listings and the ads. If a person wanted long-form journalism, the New Yorker's way better edited. Seriously, when's the last time you slogged through a Reader cover story? A paper's got to have a cover story, but too often the Reader's are addressing old topics and just aren't as compelling as more timely content. On the other hand, what city dweller could live without the listings? And having them be searchable online is fantastic. If only they'd create an online directory of advertisers, too.
Interestingly, the only department that publicly airs its complaints about management is the editorial department. Would it make sense for the advertising department to complain on the paper's web site about how they're managed, and who got fired? That sounds silly and counterproductive. So it is with the editorial department.
Listening to commenters whine about keeping things the way they were is really tedious. I love the Reader. Change is good.
BTW, and to no one in particular, the Reader wasn't created to preserve a legacy. It was created as something different, feisty, counter-to-established-culture. During it's greatest, most exciting years, it was trying new things and surprising its readership. When was the last time the Reader surprised you? (Blogs, tweets and mailing lists; yawn.) It's really quite a dusty old grand dame! As MrJM said... grandma in hospice. Time for a rebirth, which we all know can be painful.
you are wrong. the reader has changed a lot over the last decade -- to its detriment, unfortunately. it dumped star talent and instituted a string of goofy ploys: the colorful and failed redesign, for example, and the lockstep web site. the reader stopped doing the kind of journalism it was known for, and it became more like every other alt-weekly.
the one thing it didn't try, however, was pushing the boundary between editorial and sales. that's what the new publisher is preaching, and that's what has people worried. sure, a lot of the former editor's pals have chimed in, but even critical commenters don't like what they're hearing from the new regime. everyone fears nothing good will come of this, so you're on notice. can the reader afford another failure?
this isn't about alison true, or the old guard (who have every right to gripe as they count their money). it's about you.
Mr. or Ms. pasquitumepenser, I've worked at the Reader for 14 years. I'm one of those "sentimental" employees who's had to watch the entire art department get fired and the editorial staff dwindle to one-third its former size. Alison True didn't control the budgets that forced those layoffs, but she did do the very hard job of working professionally within their constraints.
You are not seeing resistance to "change" in the comments from Reader sympathizers and staff. You are seeing resistance to (and resentment of) a poorly explained and profoundly unpopular human-resources decision with as yet uncertain consequences. Few people with front-row seats to the Reader's editorial workings can imagine Alison's firing leading to anything positive.
The Reader has been through a whole lot of change in the past 15 years, some of its own making and some forced upon it. It will undoubtedly continue to change, probably even more rapidly than before, and it would have done so with Alison at the helm as well. There's a lot of territory between "keeping things the way they were" and "not firing the editor-in-chief."
Oh, and yawn to you too, you supremely worldly-wise and totally-over-it anonymous Internet commenter.
Even the REAL Old Gray Lady (the NY Times) has weighed in on what happens when no one is willing to pay investigative journalists to do their hard, occasionally scary work. http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010…
Conroy, whose work led to this case and this verdict over many years of hard work, was one of the first to be laid off from the Reader back in '07. Why? I can only guess that his experience made him expensive. Yeah, maybe lots of shallow people on the el who don't like to read beyond their commuter entertainment have no idea who he is. I'll bet the people who were victims of Burge's torture appreciate Conroy's hard work though, and I know for a fact the people who care about this city in a meaningful way do too. But the thing is, Conroy and people like him don't have steady jobs anymore. Who's going to actually be able to do the reporting that "blog aggregators" like the Huffington Post steal if there's no one to fight for them and pay them?
Pasquitumpenser says change is good. I've heard that before. Often it's accompanied by some reference to evolution. What is left unsaid is that better than 99 percent of the genetic changes that lead to evolution are counterproductive, destructive or disastrous.
So, I guess, on a geologic scale, change IS good. In the meantime, though, we're usually screwed. Personally, I don't have millions of years to wait for Creative Loafing and a succeeding string of half-ass owners to monkey around and produce a brilliant Reader.
But that seems to be the prescription, doesn't it? Anyone with deep or once-deep pockets is assumed to be possessed of genius and talent far beyond anything we workaday mortals can even imagine. If we like an old product that falls upon hard times through little or no fault of its own, we should just let go. Change is good! Never mind what the change produces. CL, Sam Zell, Rupert Murdoch, Goldman Sachs and AIG know better than we do what's good for us.
By the way, the link that Monica Kendrick provides above is really worth a read. Vocalo blogger John Conroy, lately of the Reader, is a local treasure. Wonder how he's doing by comparison, say, with that lavishly compensated cotton-minded braintrust at Trib Co.
I have been a reader of this excellent paper for many years. As a reader -- not a writer, not a journalist -- I was shocked also that Alison True's employment was terminated. The coterie of people who write for and edit this paper are exactly those who shape its image and effectiveness. In this changing environment for print and pther media, I have no doubt that Alison True was up to the continuing task and that the reader would continue its quality life. Perhaps the wrong Alison's employment was ended....
Adrienne K.
"Oh, and yawn to you too, you supremely worldly-wise and totally-over-it anonymous Internet commenter."
Don't worry, Phil, we might have a job in the mail room for you!
Alison, perhaps you could join the Chicago News Cooperative and guide them towards more interesting and diverse coverage of the city. Long a NYT subscriber, it is as if the CNC editors have no idea that the NYT writes about many subjects. Bring some life to their coverage! Yawn!
I love your last post, Pelham, but Monica Kendrick's point is central: The new owners will have to invest in the editorial product if they want to turn around the Reader's fortunes. They are bringing in a designer, but a redesign will not help, as it has been tried twice before.
I hate to agree with pasquitumepenser (who sounds like a jerk), but obviously the Reader was in trouble before the sale to Creative Loafing. Alison True's subsequent choice to dismiss John Conroy, Harold Henderson, Tori Marlan, and Steve Bogira only confirmed what I had suspected over the preceding years: The Reader decided to change focus, and I (and a lot of people I know) didn't like the new direction.
Something had to give, and the editor usually takes the blame when things turn bad. It is amazing True lasted as long as she did when you see all the untouched stacks of the Reader. And when I look at this week's cover story on Wal-Mart, I really miss the imagination of the old Reader. Maybe Alison True lacked the resources to keep that going, but her product became much less vital, at least to me, and it appeared to be targeted to a more narrow audience, white hipsters, mostly. I think many others agreed with me.
To my mind, the worst thing pasquitumepenser says is, "The chief editor's firing will have no effect on the paper's look, feel, or content." Why make the change then? To save money? You can't cut your way to success.
I stand corrected by back to the future. Firing the editor could most certainly change the look and feel of the paper, depending on with whom they replace her... as it stands now, though, substituting Kiki Yablon for Alison True would not be noticed by anyone but the writers dealing with her. Frankly I hope it DOES change the look/feel, because there hasn't been an intriguing cover story in a very long time. Check out a cover with a critical eye sometime... would you be tempted to pick it up if you weren't already a faithful reader?
As for pelham's criticism of evolution's poor track record, is it too obvious to point out that everything you see today worth admiring is the product of evolution? Don't hope it stays the same, or it will die when the last 'white hipster' doesn't have a free hand to pick up the paper because he's using both to clutch his walker. There are younger generations of potential readers; it's conservative in the extreme to suggest the aging sensibility ought to impose itself on the paper's future. (working there 14 years - or more - actually doesn't qualify a person to have a vision for the future.) Maybe younger and future readers also value good independent journalism. Maybe that's why they're not picking up the Reader; they're getting it from web sites like Prisonplanet.
It seems the original owners knew at least that much.
@back to the future
Thanks much. What drives me nuts is this emphasis on trying to find a market niche that pleases lots and lots of advertisers and draws lots of readers, even though the bulk of those readers may engage with the product on a scale that registers just half a notch above indifference. Why does this have to be the ONLY model?
Why can't we have one--just one!--publication that has, maybe, a smaller readership but one that's more passionate about the product? One that doesn't need much in the way of advertising but depends more on what readers are willing to pay directly. Maybe even one that's primarily print that is only supplemented by a lesser online presence.
I read somewhere last year that it cost something like $11 a copy to produce and deliver to doorsteps the Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. In other words, if there were no ad revenue, a Bay Area resident would have to shell out that much to get the paper delivered at home. (Of course, if there were no ads, the paper would be about two-thirds smaller, and that would reduce the overall cost at least a bit.)
Eleven dollars is a bit steep, but not really out of the ballpark. The old Reader, with lots of long-form journalism, surely didn't cost anything like $11 a copy to produce. And I would have been willing to shell out $5 a week for it. I'll bet lots of people would have, too.
So? Is it utterly beyond human genius to figure out how we might go about linking up thinking, willing-to-pay readers with a restored publication staffed by enthusiastic, committed and well-compensated journalists beholden to no one other than those readers? I'm talking about just one--ONE ONLY!--such publication in the third-biggest metropolitan area in the greatest nation on earth?
Apparently this is out of the question. It's absurd even to suggest that we explore, even for a moment, any kind of non-obvious solution that doesn't put revenue first and content last. And even within that worn-out framework, the celebrated American derring-do, the gusto for taking calculated but wild risks in the marketplace has been completely farted away. Which is why 90 percent of radio stations are pumping out either robot-programmed pop music or rightwing ranters, for instance, and why we're likely to end up with just another iteration of RedEye or Time Out Chicago in this sorry situation.
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Alison True Fired as Reader Editor
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