THOUGHTS ON JEFF CORYELL AND WIDE OPEN…
October 31st, 2007
A few weeks ago I had lunch with Scott Piepho, Molly Danzinger, Jill Miller Zimon and Jeff Coryell. The Plain Dealer’s Wide Open blog experiment was still in the early stages and we all talked a bit about how the blog might develop. Because I have great respect for both Jill and Jeff I kept most of my comments to myself.
But I did make the observation that the Newspaper Guild might consider them scabs; horning in on beats that ought to go to its members. If Jeff had been a member of the guild he would probably still have his job; except that Jeff would probably not have been hired in the first place because of his overt political positions.
Not too long ago, journalists and newspapers were blatantly partisan. Publishers proudly added the tag Republican, Democrat or Independent to their flag. People read the Santa Rosa Democrat or the Republican American. And that was a good thing. Reporters could work for papers where they not only could takes sides but where their publishers demanded that they do so.
Then came broadcast journalism with its rules and the Fairness Doctrine. And suddenly print media started waving around the banner of objectivity which is really nothing more than a smoke screen used to hide the fact that you don’t really say anything that might offend people who pay your salary, or your publisher’s salary.
Here’s my prediction. The Plain Dealer will do one of two things in the very near future. It will either fold Wide Open because it can’t find a non-conservative blogger in Ohio willing to continue the experiment; or it will continue Wide Open by assigning two reporters to play non-conservative bloggers.
My money is on the former.
And to make it easier to follow the unfolding story, Jeff has a number of posts up today — including Plain Dealer Editor Susan Goldberg’s response.
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