When I read the Gannett "Information Center" memo and its attached Q and A, I immediately worried that there was so much in it that it would be misinterpreted and lead to unpredictable side effects. Faced with the enormity of it all, people would naturally latch onto the little parts that felt most comfortable (like hard news 24x7, or video).
The nation's second largest newspaper is in one hell of a mess, and as Jeff Jarvis says, it's become something of a parlor game to answer the question, "What would you do with ...?"
Los Angeles Times Editor John Carroll quit last year in protest of budget cuts. Publisher Jeffrey Johnson defied corporate instructions to cut expenses this year, and was shown the door as his reward.
John Burke has a thoughful commentary on editorsweblog.org in which he observes:
In my job as a strategist I often use a fairly simple trick to get the process going: Turn the problem over. What if all your assumptions are wrong? Flip-flop them and see what you learn.
Recently I was on panel at the annual Society of Professional Journalists convention Chicago. Here are three examples I gave of "bad" that have "good" aspects if you change your point of view.
