Re: Tell us, Jen, where does Luis fit into this? -- Pittsburgh Media Scoops and Gossip

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Date Posted: 14:21:23 01/14/17 Sat
Author: Penicillin cures VND
Subject: Re: Tell us, Jen, where does Luis fit into this?
In reply to: DownGruv 's message, "Tell us, Jen, where does Luis fit into this?" on 03:50:09 12/15/16 Thu

I don't read the VND and never did. It's just a dump for blotter news and the dull machinations of local government.

If you want uninspiring and boring content, then they found the perfect ex-Trib business editor to oversee it. At least with the previous editor you had a great deal of institutional knowledge and editorial competence, even if there was never much to report that was intriguing.

Greensburg has Erdley and she's good, but a lot of the copy there is a slightly higher grade of VNDish who-gives-a-damn, topped off with chamber of commerce fluffering you find in the worst small town presses.

It's never wanted to be more than it is, which is fine, but no one should think that the influx of Pittsburghers will make it better.

It's just more of the same with different bylines.

If you want to tell me that it was a lot better a quarter-century ago, I'd agree, but none of those staffers are left. Partly you can blame that on the resources flowing to the Pittsburgh Trib, but you also have to concede that it was an aging group of talent and they weren't going to work forever.

The Pittsburgh Trib 2.0 is a disaster. If the sports team left, there would be no reason to keep it open. Bertetto likely will can it sooner rather than later and move the leftovers to Greensburg and the Valley.

It's unreadable, even if there are some solid reporters remaining.

If the point of Jennifer's jihad was to make the enterprise solvent, then she might've succeeded. But if she also wanted to retain a relevant, readable product, she failed completely.

There was no strategic vision beyond cutting costs. It's still bloated with editors and management (seriously, just look at the ratio of reporters to editors, not even counting copy editors) but what they're editing is crap.

There's a lot of crime reporting that the PG already got, plus news based on press releases. The easy stuff that you grab when you've got small staffs of reporters and too many editors, I suspect.

The good news is that there's no competition for most of the Trib's remaining reporters, editors and photographers, so you don't have to pay them more to keep them from being hired away.

Stability isn't a bad thing, but it's also probably not sustainable. Eventually, consumers want quality, even if you're giving the product away for free online.

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