They Won’t Go Quietly

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What’s the beef? Tribune cartoonist Jeff MacNelly died in 2000, opening one of the most desirable positions in journalism, but the Tribune has never filled it. Last month the Tribune Company’s Los Angeles Times fired its cartoonist, Michael Ramirez, and said it would run syndicated cartoons instead. The Christian Science Monitor’s Clay Bennett, who’s president of the AAEC, protested to the Tribune Company’s CEO, Dennis FitzSimons. “There are few journalists in a newsroom who can define the tone and identity of a publication like an editorial cartoonist does,” Bennett wrote. “By discarding those who make a newspaper unique, you rob it of its character. By robbing a newspaper of its character, you steal its spirit. The fate of several editorial cartoonists now hangs in the balance as other newspapers within your company look to make staff cuts.”

Bennett says FitzSimons didn’t reply, and a few days later the Tribune Company eliminated hundreds of jobs, among them the one held by Baltimore Sun cartoonist Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher. “He took a buyout,” says Bennett. “He had good reason to believe his position was in danger. They announced they wouldn’t replace him.”

Much response? I asked the Tribune Company’s Gary Weitman Monday evening. He said a “handful” of e-mails had arrived. He told me he’d answer all of them, but he wouldn’t tell me what he’d say.

The university’s announcement quoted Lavine in worrisome fashion. “We need to develop a more profound understanding of audiences and consumers,” he said, “of what they value and of how to present journalism and the new digital media to them.” No one can argue with that. But then he plunged into language that to a lot of journalists is jargon: “We also need to have a far deeper understanding of media brands and marketing communications and how to use them to engage media audiences.” And he declared the divide will exist no more: “Building on the strategic goals developed by the combined faculties, we will urgently work together to remake the school’s entire undergraduate and graduate curricula.”

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