Get a Grip on the Goal

People often complain that the mainstream media is too self-centered, and somedays, that characterization is hard to challenge. Two examples:

From The New York Times, this inflated sense of importance. The best we can hope for is that it was meant to be fun but fell flat:

Op-Extra
Blogs
The Conversation
Who Will Replace Souter?
By DAVID BROOKS and GAIL COLLINS
Here's hoping for someone Gail Collins likes, and David Brooks can live with.



Readers DO NOT CARE about bylines. And a management that would savage the ranks the way it has in the last few years also doesn't care. I realize people are stressed and looking for anything to make themselves heard but this old tactic has never, ever worked.


Sun staffers to withhold
bylines to protest job cuts, Tribune's "heavy-handed tactics"
MORE THAN 50 BALTIMORE SUN
NEWSROOM STAFF MEMBERS LAUNCH BYLINE STRIKE PROTESTING JOB CUTS AND HEAVY
HANDED TACTICS BY TRIBUNE

Reporters, photojournalists and other newsroom staff members, angered at shabby
treatment and Tribune's dismantling of the paper, say no to bylines.

BALTIMORE, Md., May 6, 2009 –More than 50 Baltimore Sun newsroom staff members, including reporters, photographers and other
bylined content producers, launched a byline strike today protesting layoffs
and heavy handed tactics by owner Tribune Co.

Newsroom staff members informed their managers today that they would withhold
their bylines to protest last week's surprise layoffs of roughly 60 newsroom
employees. Tribune, last week, slashed the newsroom by about one third,
reducing the staff to 148 employees, a fraction of what it was in 1999 when the
Chicago-based company acquired The Sun, which then boasted a newsroom staff of
about 420 employees.

Some employees last week were fired while they were in the midst of writing and
editing stories. Others were told to pack up their belongings immediately, and
others were escorted out of the main newspaper building by security guards.

"Tribune's tactics are deplorable," said Cet Parks, Executive Director of the
Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. "Employees who poured their hearts
and souls into putting out a great newspaper every day were told to get out and
stay out. No fanfare, no thank you, no outplacement help, just hit the streets.
Maybe that's big business Tribune way, but it isn't right. Through its actions
Tribune has demonstrated that it has little regard or respect for its
employees."