Unfortunate ad placement is a fact of life. I’m sure the page designer would like to claw back this one showing a person with a computer strapped to his back, falling though the air like a parachute jumper. The ad happened to run on Sept. 17, 2001, next to a story about how IT departments were coping with the aftermath of September 11, when real people jumped out of the Twin Towers to keep from burning to death.

How well did my old paper do on the earthquake in Haiti?

I spent 35 years working for The Palm Beach Post. I never went to Haiti myself, but I sent photographers there when I was director of photography. I’m not exaggerating when I say that every shooter came back a changed person.

Lannis Waters, a photographer who had been to Haiti several times was one of the few old-timers to survive the buyouts. I heard a rumor that he was going back, so I turned to The Palm Beach Post web site to see if he had filed anything in the gallery of photos from the devastated island.

This goes beyond insenstive

Cops, journalists, healthcare workers and EMTs use gallows humor to protect us from what we see on a daily basis. We try hard, though, to keep that defense mechanism away from outsiders, who wouldn’t understand.

These advertisements paired with horrific pictures of crushed bodies, maimed children, destroyed homes and incredible human suffering were worse than any caption I ever saw posted on the photo department’s back bulletin board.

SECOND WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES AHEAD

I couldn’t decide which was worse

The Jet Blue ad that says, “THIS DAY JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER” next to a father who has just discovered his 10-month-old daughter in a pile of corpses.

A Palm Beach Post house ad with the headline “SURVIVING THE SQUEEZE” next to a photo of a pair of feet sticking out from under a collapsed hotel.

Another Palm Beach Post house ad headlined, “LOSING YOUR HOME?” next to a photo of the rubble of Haiti’s Presidential Palace.

Airlines used to kill ads

Commercial airlines used to have a mandatory kill in their contracts to keep one of their ads from running on the same day as a plane crash. I’m sure that some of these advertisers would be appalled to see their ads used next to these photos. Under any other circumstances, the juxtapositions would be funny. This isn’t one of them.

My geek son gave this explanation:

A web developement person agreed

Possible solutions?

• Kill the ad feed for a few days?
• Pull the ads out of rotation (some photos must lack ads because they displayed plain black where the ad would have been)
• Run APPROPRIATE house ads detailing how you are covering the event
• Run public service announcements

Technology has come a long way

I’m waiting for a Post response

Gallery of Photos

[Note: Ken Steinhoff's first published picture was April 18, 1963. He's worked for papers in four states as a reporter, copy editor, photographer, typesetter and engraver.  He was hired as a photographer for The Palm Beach Post and Evening Times Dec. 31, 1972. He was a shooter for three years, promoted to director of photography and spent from 1991 to his retirement in 2008 as telecommunications manager. He wrote this piece as a long-time Palm Beach Post subscriber who remembers when newspapers were accountable for every word they published.]

Shawn Moynihan, who wrote the magazine’s obituary, said “the expressions of surprise and outpouring of strong support for E&P that has followed across the Web — Editor & Publisher has even hit No. 4 as a Twitter trending topic — raises the notion that the publication might yet continue in some form.”

Sounds like whistling past the graveyard to me.

You can read the whole, sad story here at E&P.

Poynter rehashes the press release here, but the comments are starting to get interesting.

I lost respect for the magazine when they started calling ink slingers ‘journos.” I never heard anybody who really wrote for a living use that term as a self description.

Section Editors Reporting to Sales Managers

 After the jump, you will find a memo Dallas Morning News editor Bob Mong and senior vice president of sales Cyndy Carr sent to everyone at A.H. Belo Corp. Wednesday, Dec. 2, outlining what they call a “business/news integration.”

Which means? As of Wednesday, some section editors at all of the company’s papers, including The News, will now report directly to Carr’s team of sales managers, now referred to as general managers. In short, those who sell ads for A.H. Belo’s products will now dictate content within A.H. Belo’s products, which is a radical departure from the way newspapers have been run since, oh, forever.

Business and Metro likely not exempt

Those sections mentioned in the memo include sports, entertainment, real estate, automotive and travel, among others.The memo doesn’t mention Business or Metro by name, but there are references to “health/education” and “retail/finance”; these are not defined in the missive. Says the memo, Carr’s sales force will “be working closely with news leadership in product and content development.”

Executive sports editor Bob Yates and Lifestyles deputy managing editor Lisa Kresl are quoted in the memo enthusiastically signing off on the unconventional marriage; says Kresl, “I’m excited about the idea of working with a business partner on an arts and entertainment segment.”

 The memo

Subject: Memo from Bob Mong and Cyndy Carr

The Dallas Morning News

December 2, 2009

Colleagues:

Today we are launching a new business segment structure as the next step toward becoming the most comprehensive and trusted partner for local businesses in attracting and retaining customers and continuing to generate important, relevant content for our consumers.

To better align with our clients’ needs, we will be organized around eleven business and content segments with similar marketing and consumer profiles including: sports, health/education, entertainment, travel/luxury, automotive, real estate, communications, preprints/grocery, recruitment, retail/finance, and SMB/Interactive.

Each segment will be led by a General Manager (GM), a newly-defined role, each reporting to Cyndy Carr, charged with analyzing and growing the business by developing solutions that meet consumer needs and maximize results for our clients. Their responsibilities will include sales and business development. They will also be working closely with news leadership in product and content development.

In the Sports and Entertainment segments, the senior news editors will report directly to the GM while retaining a strong reporting relationship to the editor and managing editor. These collaborations will bring new products that consumers want to the market more rapidly. We are proceeding knowing and trusting each other’s distinct roles and responsibilities in the same way our News leadership and our Publisher have worked collaboratively for years.

This business/news integration is a progressive step and is strongly supported by the news leaders of both the Sports and Entertainment segments:

“As a segment, we have a lot of advantages usually associated with a start-up,” said Bob Yates, deputy managing editor and Executive Sports Editor. “We should be able to move much more quickly to take advantage of opportunities. That comes from having greater autonomy that gives us the freedom to develop both advertising and content solutions.”

“As a journalist who has participated in many new product launches, I’m excited about the idea of working with a business partner on an arts and entertainment segment,” added Lisa Kresl, deputy managing editor for Lifestyles. “Our high quality, credible content will reach new audiences in a variety of formats.”

The new segment leadership team is comprised of a very talented and accomplished group of business professionals:

Entertainment and Travel/Luxury Segments: Tracy Martin Taylor is the GM for the Entertainment and Travel/Luxury segments. As part of the new GM role, Tracy will be responsible for overseeing content. Tracy will continue her role as Quick Publisher and assume the role of FD Luxe Publisher. Prior to joining The News in July, she was in sales management at Clear Channel Radio and marketing at Wherehouse Music.

 Sports and Health/Education Segments: Rich Alfano is the newest member of our management team. Rich worked for Times Mirror Magazines and served as President of Yachting, Saltwater Sportsman and Golf Magazine. He has most recently served as Senior Vice President/General Manager and SVP/Strategic Marketing for Practitioner’s Publishing Co./Thomson Reuters. His professional success and experience in several industries makes him ideally suited to lead two of our high-growth segments.

Automotive Segment: Bill Bradley is the Automotive GM. Bill has over ten years of experience in sales management and has been a leader in solution-based selling. His in-depth knowledge of the auto industry combined with his strong local dealer relationships make him ideal for the role. Bill has held sales management positions on the The News classified and local teams as well as sales and training roles in the newspaper industry prior to joining the company.

Real Estate Segment: Bill Bradley will assume the role of acting GM for Real Estate until the permanent position is hired.

Communications Segment: Alejandro “Alex” Sanchez is the Communications GM and Publisher of Al Día. He’s been the Publisher of Al Dia the past two years and is responsible for achieving profitability earlier this year. Prior to The News, Alex spent 10 years as vice president and general manager for various television and radio stations in Texas, New York and California.

Pre-prints/Grocery Segment: Dan Phelan is the GM for the Pre-Print/Grocery Segment. Since becoming pre-print sales director in 2003, Dan has excelled in delivering creative solutions for our clients and has ranked at the top of our peer group in revenue performance. Prior to The News, Dan spent 18 years with Advo/Valassis in customer service and sales management roles.

Recruitment Segment: Michael Mayer is GM for Recruitment Advertising segment. He is a seasoned sales leader and has held various sales management positions in the newspaper industry including Recruitment Director at The Denver Newspaper Agency.

Retail/Financial Segment: Grant Moise is GM for the Retail/Financial segment. Grant has also been named Publisher of Briefing after leading it to profitability since joining The News in December. Grant was previously the Regional Sales Director for Tribune Media Net and the National Advertising Director at The News.

SMB/Retail Interactive Segment: As the GM of SMB/Retail Interactive, Robert Jehling will focus our existing local teams on sales opportunities in the small and medium business (SMB) segments. SMB is composed of the General Classifieds organizations, SMB sales teams, and the Self Serve Portal. Robert will also continue to lead the Local and National Retail Interactive teams which have achieved revenue growth under his leadership. In addition, Robert will serve as Publisher for NeighborsGo and NeighborsGo.com. Prior to joining The News last November, Robert was a Senior Sales Director at AT&T. Robert has over 15 years in leading consultative sales and marketing teams, with a proven track record of success in merging sales organizations and driving increased productivity.

The segment restructure is one of several key strategies we have implemented this year to better serve our advertising clients, including the following:

Every member of the sales staff has completed a solutions-based training and evaluation program to increase their ability to better understand our clients’ marketing objectives and recommend solutions that deliver results. Training is an ongoing priority. Future training topics will include digital, product and segment training in addition to a learning management system to facilitate continuous education and assist in certification.

Implemented a new Integrated Advertising System (IAS) in July, which consolidated over five disparate operating systems enabling us to more efficiently manage our clients’ accounts.

Restructured the marketing organization to better support the sales staff in the development of media solutions for our clients. Market, audience and segment analysts provide valuable insights while marketing strategists, media planners and the agency help create campaigns that deliver results.

Created an agency liaison team to better serve our advertising agency clients through a more singular focus on account management. After the first 90 days, our satisfaction ratings have increased significantly.

As The Dallas Morning News approaches its 125th anniversary in 2010, our business stands at a critical crossroads. Our success depends on employing bold strategies to evolve our organization: our home delivery pricing strategy (on which Jim and John updated us on Monday), our continued dedication and investment in important and relevant journalism that makes a difference in our community and the ongoing development of our product portfolio have all played a role in changing our approach to how we do business.

This restructure and strategic integration with news, along with the many other strategies we’ve put into place this year to better serve our clients and consumers, position us for significant growth and stability as we head into the new year.

Cyndy Carr Bob Mong

SVP/Sales Editor

The story posted today by Henry Frederick, on NSBnews.net – an online community newspaper in New Smyrna Beach:

By Henry Frederick

DAYTONA BEACH — Forty-three employees of the Daytona Beach News-Journal lost their jobs earlier today, according to several sources.

Of the 43 cuts, 16 were in the newsroom and nine were unionized pressmen. The others were from various other departments.

Executive Editor Don Lindley informed the terminated employees in an e-mail and then left for the day at 4 p.m. without facing any of those whose jobs were cut, according to an inside source.

Buyouts offered

One of two terminated newsroom reporters is a single mother with a baby, whose recent beat was the city of Deltona. A sports columnist who has written a popular column for more than a decade was terminated as was a longtime photographer, a librarian, a longtime regional editor a page designer in Accent and a page designer on the news desk. Several others in the newsroom were offered and took buyouts, including the senior managing editor Troy Moore, whose last day was Saturday.

Just four years ago, the News-Journal employed more than 800 people and had a daily circulation that hovered around 100,000, but after losing a series of appeals of the $129 million federal court judgment awarded to minority owner Cox Enterprises, the News-Journal’s circulation has plummeted and so has its staff by almost two thirds. The suit was spurred by the late Tippen Davidson’s decision to spend $13 million on naming rights without Cox’s permission for the $29 million News-Journal Center, a cultural arts Center on Beach Street that is now owned by Daytona State College

No buyers for newspaper

The News-Journal has had trouble finding a buyer in this national recession that has wreaked havoc on newspapers across the country, with some offers hovering around $20 million.

The Pennysavers were consolidated earlier this summer and last year the News-Journal closed its bureaus in New Smyrna Beach, DeLand, Deltona and Bunnell.

The former Pennysaver/News-Journal bureau on Canal Street is now the headquarters for the re-election of Mayor Sally Mackay.

Franklin

Doug Franklin, briefly publisher at The Palm Beach Post and now executive vice-president of Cox Newspapers, spoke at the recent meeting of the Florida Press Association/Florida Society of News Editors members in Palm Beach.

Talking to the assembled group of publishers and editors at The Breakers, Franklin addressed the tough challenges facing the industry. He reportedly gave a roster of ideas to do away with the current ”non-working” business model of newspapering, and embrace cost-cutting measures to streamline operations and get profitability back on track while meeting readers’ needs.

He advocated cutting and combining staffs of all local papers to create one large regional paper for the Southeast area.

Some key points included:

• Identify “core” coverage areas, and use salaried beat reporters to cover them.
• Use freelancers to fill in all other coverage, reducing full-time staff to essential personnel.
• Eliminate local copy desks – combine desks among all the papers in one region.
• Combine the papers in a region and pool all other resources.

He also didn’t rule out going solely to a digital edition but said the media must shed traditional formats to deliver news and information on several platforms in this technology-driven age.

Already in motion

Franklin put into pratice his methods at The Post beginning in August 2008, when more than 280 employees were offered “Voluntary Separation Agreements.” This was followed by further staff cuts in December, and the shutting down of presses and print production on site. Those operations were moved to the Sun-Sentinel, along with distribution.

Coverage of certain news beats is pooled with them; sports and photography departments also pool resources.

Palm Beach Newspapers Inc., which publishes the Palm Beach Daily News and La Palma along with The Post,  is down to around 540 full-time employees,  from a high of around 1700.  More staff cuts, estimated at 40 to 50 from advertising and news departments, were recently announced the current publisher, Alex Taylor.

After a round of hurried employee evaluations — points awarded to each staffer based on criteria decided by managers and HR — the cuts will be made by September 1. Remaining positions will undergo a reorganization. Those remaining must reapply for their jobs.

Time Magazine has posted an article on different ways different media are approaching the “Pay or not?” conundrum clogging blogs, think tanks and newsroom board rooms everywhere.

Read it here — and give us your opinion: Are you willing to pay to get your news online? If not, do you care that you’ll have to read product placement, or possibly “placed” advertorial stories that do pay for the Web site instead?

Farewell to a news legend

And we pause to remember the silence of a sure voice that delivered the news in markedly unsure times: Walter Cronkite — a consummate newsman. Good night, Walter.

Walter Cronkite

Wikipedia: How Newspaper Obituaries are Written

Since learning of the news of Michael Jackson’s dead (from Laine’s Facebook status), I have been monitoring the Michael Jackson Wikipedia edit log. Based on the edit log, it looks as though Wikipedia had the cardiac arrest before it was reported by the Los Angeles Times. Not bad.

Here’s what I find fascinating… half of what you read in newspaper obituaries was written and fact-checked by Wikipedia contributors. Based on previous obituaries, we’ll see how close to correct I am tomorrow. In the meantime, watch the edit log and see if Jackson’s image is being softened or fixed in stone by his death.

“It Must be True: Twitter is Down.”

While trying to confirm Jackson’s death, these words were uttered, “it must be true… Twitter is down.”.

Welcome to the new world of news. Got your own ‘Jackson is dead’ electronic media stories? Tell them below.

(Bonus: Michael Jackson’s Obit as a Limerick.)

Thanks to Grant from the The Guild of Scientific Troubadours for bringing this depressing news to our attention.

Tribune gave its rank and file employees a fair amount of stock through profit sharing. That was great when the shares were trading at $70. As the stock fell into the $30s, our Tribune stock was just a reminder that layoffs were coming and half our nest egg was gone.

Free advice: Diversify. If you still work for a newspaper — any publicly-traded newspaper — and your 401K is flush with company stock, it may be worth talking to your financial advisor. When Enron went toes-up, a lot of its employees were hit with a double-whammy: not only were they suddenly out of work, their Enron-heavy 401Ks were near worthless.

If you are a journalist who is moving from a full-time print job into the world of blogging, it is important to recognize that they too have a brand to protect and promote. Don’t make the same mistakes the New York Times is making.

Want to pimp your blog? Throw a comment below with a link to your own blog and short description as to why we should click over.