Nick Bergus Thoughts on what media do, and can do better, and other things

It this week’s Hoopla, Gazette Communication’s weekly for “young adults,” there is a short interview with Doug Roberson, longtime booker and bartender at Gabe’s and the Picador. After the interview, Mr. Roberson was laid off. This sucks.
But to make matters worse for Mr. Roberson, when the story appeared online, it ran with this editor’s note:
Shortly [...]

I complain about The Gazette in this space a lot, partially because it’s a good target as the largest media company in the Corridor Crandic, and partially because I want it to be a great organization. So, today, some kudos.
Todd Dorman is a guy who gets it. Three columns a week about stuff that matters [...]

Gazette Communications publicly announced its reorganization (which I’ve written about here and in the Corridor Business Journal) and laid off 13 employees. According to the media company, the restructuring will result in 100 fewer jobs.
The restructuring sees Steve Buttry move from editor of The Gazette and GazetteOnline to overseeing the entire news gathering operation and [...]

Lots of Iowa newspapers ran stories early this week about the hardware they won from Iowa Newspaper Association. They use it to show their readers how valuable they are, how good their journalism is. According to the AP, this year’s winners of the annual awards:
General Excellence:Dailies Class 1: First Place- Carroll Daily Times Herald, Second [...]

In Monday’s Corridor Business Journal is the first of what we plan to be a monthly media column that I will write with John Goodlove. In this installment, we wrote about the recent announcement that The Gazette is restructuring its newsroom, and the following staff uneasiness.
Mr. Goodlove is a grizzled newspaper veteran while I’m younger [...]

When The Des Moines Register isn’t firing its high-profile staffers, they’re quitting. David Yepsen, the Register’s senior political columnist, is expected to leave to become the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, the paper reported. (The New York Times‘ political blog The Caucus sounds pretty convinced that that he [...]

That’s according to a memo published by Romenesko today. I interned at the paper and its sister Web site, TBO.com, last summer as part of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund’s online editing program.
I understand why Managing Editor Duke Maas, who was very accommodating to me during my stint there, might do it. The newspaper industry [...]

Today I’m reminded of a lesson I learned in a reporting 101 class:
People die.
People do not pass away. They do not meet Jesus. They do not cross over. They are not lost.
People die.

For the last six months, The Gazette has done an admirable job covering the 500-year flood that covered downtown Cedar Rapids in June and the city’s recovery since. Local stories by local writers about local people and local challenges. This week, the organization looked back at the changes the flood wrought, and put all of [...]

And he has every right to be. Brian Duffy, recently laidoff cartoonist at the Register whose cartoons graced A1 for a couple decades, is pissed. And WHO, in true TV news fashion, is more than happy to play it big and dramatic.