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| Hot Type, for the week of June 17, 2005 -- continued Tate's relationship with Dumke was particularly touchy. They'd worked together for years, and he was the managing editor when she took over. But she appointed Loury senior editor above him. Though Dumke quit as managing editor early last year to teach at Columbia College, as a "part-time" contributing editor he was still giving the Reporter 30 hours a week. After their meeting Tate e-mailed him. She said she "remained concerned . . . about your acknowledgement that it is difficult for you to envision your role here under existing leadership and in the offices of Community Renewal Society. . . . I will be sharing my recommendations and goals after meeting with each staff member, and then will sit down with each person again." Dumke was alarmed. He wrote back, "I spoke to you Wednesday as frankly as I could with the understanding that the discussion would be open and honest. I did not understand it to be part of a formal process of evaluation of my performance." Tate replied, "I apologize if I have not been clear. All of our discussions here about your perspectives and opinions about the Reporter, and your role in particular, should be viewed as part of my current goal to reassess and evaluate every aspect of the magazine. . . . You are correct in assuming that our upcoming conversation, when it is scheduled, will focus largely on your role and future at the magazine." Dumke then told her, "My assumptions about the informal nature of our conversation were not derived out of the blue. For the six years you and I have worked together, regardless of the titles we have held, we have always had an open dialogue. . . . We have spoken honestly about our work, our lives and our hopes. I understand now that this level of openness may no longer be useful or appropriate." Between the first and second rounds of one-on-ones, the staff received the e-mail in which Tate conceded that the working environment had become intolerable. In it she promised movement from management -- but she also demanded it from them. "We must agree to operate as a team that is not a collective or a family," she wrote. "We must move in the direction of eliminating gossip. . . . We must commit to testing the ideas and decisions communicated by the leadership by putting them into good practice, rather than undermining them." Furthermore, "It will also be increasingly important to our work to have good working relationships with the rest of the CRS staff." Team versus family? Brian Rogal says Tate had been making that distinction for months, and no one understood it. But the tone of her memo was clear. It was, well, corporate. "Whitaker told us Alysia wanted a more corporate structure," says Rogal. "He said he thought it was wrong. We thought it was wrong." The second time they met, Tate fired Dumke. Rogal went in next and, like Dumke, objected to the memo. "I felt it was written by someone who knows the words and not the music," he says. "She gave me a cold, cold stare. 'So you think it's all my fault.'" Rogal walked out pretty certain he was history. "Brian and Mick were two of the best reporters the Reporter had," says Sarah Karp, who's now on maternity leave. "They went into the conversations wanting to be fair and honest. I don't think they went in trying to bash her or take down the Reporter, anything like that. We thought we were having honest and open discussions about the Reporter. I don't think any of us expected the result would be half the staff would be fired." Tate told me she wouldn't discuss personnel matters, but she was friendly and suggested lunch. Then she e-mailed CRS executive director Morris and the members of the advisory board. "In the next week or two," she wrote, "you may see some media about recent staffing changes at the Reporter. I wanted to make sure that all of you knew that these stories were promoted by former employees here -- not current staff -- and that the tenor of those stories will likely be largely reflective of people's upsets, not the truth about what is happening here." I felt obliged to e-mail the same board members. I wanted them to know that none of the former Reporter employees I'd spoken to had come to me with the story. I didn't even know that Dumke and Rogal had been fired until two months later -- when someone outside the magazine told me. News Bite
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The way a magazine shops for new blood says a lot about how it idealizes itself. Crain's Chicago Business just promoted managing editor Joseph Cahill to editor, and now it's looking to fill his old job. It wants applicants to know its stories "are known for sophisticated analysis, strong point of view, sharp writing and a forward spin that tells readers what to expect, not just what happened yesterday." The next managing editor should "know how to balance hard-hitting news coverage with the occasional offspeed pitch. . . . A competitive nature wrapped in a congenial personality seals the deal."