World's stupidest newspaper decision
Monday May 7, 2007
I work in a declining industry -- newspaper journalism -- that makes some stupid decisions. But I can't think of any that tops this: the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has ended James Lileks' column, and assigned him to write straight news stories....
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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First thing we do, let's kill all the intellectuals. LOL.
If they send James to a Re-education camp, i wanna sit in the row behind him during the sessions on True Ideology. Can't wait to hear the questions he asks the party officials.
But when they send us out into the fields to pull weeds, i've got this disc problem in my lower back, and i can't....
Maybe they are trying to get him to quit? He is brilliant and the only reason to read the rag. Idiots. I used to write book reviews for them-- MANY. When my editor quit he warned me that they would not like my politics, though I never was explicit about them. He was right. When I turned in my first review I was told I was incompetent and couldn't write book reviews. At that point I had probably written over two hundred book reviews, including at least two for the (London) TLS. (My former editor, who warned me and whom I had written for for years, was a respected fiction writer). I quit. !@#$%^& idiots.
Wow. No idea what the dim bulbs at the Strib must have been thinking. Wouldn't want too much actual talent creeping into the paper, I suppose. But if I had any kind of management role at, say, the St. Paul Pioneer Press I'd be on the phone with Lileks NOW.
Well, The Simpsons has been going downhill since season 36... God bless.
Well, this explains it: http://www.startribune.com/535/story/1168482.html Guild paper. Big RIF announced today. Trying to make him quit or, if that doesn't work, make him a fish out of water so that he might be inefficient enough to manufacture some sort of case for firing him.
Like giving the Oscar to Oliver! instead of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Well, we are the species that, when given the choice, picked Barabbas over Christ. If we can be that wrong about the Big Things, there's no particular reason we will be right about something as trivial as a newspaper column. We have a knack for rushing enthusiastically over cliffs, picking wrong roads, and refusing to ask for directions.
I never really liked Lilleks's writing style, but I hope this wasn't done for ideological reasons.
I dissent. I find lileks to be smirkingly self-absorbed and I found 2001 to be tedious.
Pots.... kettles.... Anyway, let these dinosaur papers die and become fertilizer. They are increasingly meaningless. Plus they're really bad for the environment, man. Peace.
I was a staff reporter only briefly (not in Minneapolis), and this is what they do when they want you to quit. I'm sure Rod knows that. I suppose it would have been more obvious if they'd shipped him to the copy desk, but not much. Newspapers are dying, but they seem set on hastening things. Everywhere, the same story: Cost-cutting corporation seeks to boost exceptionally high (yet declining) profits of a declining industry. In the process, they make the paper worse, running off the good writers and all but the oldest and most committed readers. (Read: don't use Internet). Then another corporate buyer comes in with more cuts to boost profits. Because it sees "value." And the new cuts start the process all over again.
Digital media is all - it's cheaper to produce and distribute. The future is newsbites on your cel phone and blurblets on your blackberries. There's no room for insight in a text message. This is what profit-driven corporate media has wrought.
Well, personally I can't stand The Simpsons:) But then again, it probably would not be a very good business/economic decision.
Rod wanted similes; maybe it would be like the FOX network recasting Homer Simpson as a CTU agent in 24. It's actually funny because I just told me wife last night that although I liked the Simpsons, I really only have to see it once every 3 or 4 years.
Lileks has lost his column!? Has Target been told?
what, the star tribune no longer wishes to subsidize lileks' stay-at-home parenting, amazon purchases, scotch and cigar habits, trips to mall of america, drives around minneapolis with digital camera, writing books on yucky food and tacky decorating? why on earth not?
Picking Barabbas over Christ was the wrong choice? I always thought it was the only sensible thing in that damned book.
Sure, was Barabbas going to die for your sins? And The Simpsons is the only good thing to come out of Fox in years!
Like picking Crunchy Con over God's Politics.
OOHH OOHH! Like taking Ernie Broglio for Lou Brock! Cubs fans should know that one.
Excuse me,but I've never heard of James Lileks. I can name several other columnists for the Strib [off the top of my head-- Al Sicherman, Jeremy Iggers, Dan Barrerio, Patrick Reusse, Sid Hartman, C.J., Doug Grow, and Colin Covert], but not him. And I live in Arkansas. :) k.
You're excused,teacherkd. In Indiana, we've never heard of those people you mentioned,but we sure know and love our Lileks!
I think the long knives are out for him because he has not cheerfully accepted his cup of Kool-Aid and continues to represent moderate and reasonable political thought.
It's like refusing a filet mignon in favor of cabbage rolls for dinner.
It's like refusing a prime rib dinner in favor of a Space Food Stick.
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