A Media Empire Grows

Dare we hope that this will lead to a complete redesign of the Register's god-awful, semi-functional, intrusive and just plain butt-ugly website?

To "Jonathan Swift,"

A redesign of our god-awful, semi-functional, intrusive and butt-ugly website was already in the works long before this announcement.

I don't have an exact timetable for you - but soon. Can't come soon enough.

Matt DeRienzo
Group Editor, New Haven Register and JRC Connecticut
[email protected]

Ha, this is amusing because that website IS gawd-awful.

but don't mess with the archives -- they are great. Accessible, and pretty comprehensive.

As for Dean Singleton, I met him once.

Denver Post isn't going to know what hit them if JRC's notorious news culture still persists there -- doubtful since ownership of JRC has changed hands.

Somehow, Ol' Dean managed, or maybe somehow his scrappy reporters managed, to put the Denver Post on the map with a Pulitzer, and a good one at that, meaning for a story that was darn respectable.

The Denver Post could never hold a candle to the old Rocky Mountain News, a grand Scripps Howard paper from the good old days.

Alas, all of this is post-game chatter because none of these papers are what they used to be, nor will they ever be again.

Dean Singleton was the pioneer of news for profit. JRC was smaller and never got the press Singleton did, but JRC, was notable in that it took Singleton's profit focus to new, draconian levels. Torture is an appropriate word. Accountants' revenge on journalism. The JRC left them all in the dust, driving its employees to the brink of madness. It would have made Singleton blush.

But JRC has been sold, and now it owns Singleton's dynasty of mediocrity.

For a good book that features one paper's fight against Singleton in the very early years of his expansion read "The Hard Way" about a fiesty New England weekly he bought. It reads like ancient history in light of where things are today.

When Singleton took over a paper I worked for years ago, news took a back seat, and propaganda about the paper's news commitment took a front seat and was very, very effective.

Today that paper touts its reputation for hard reporting and kisses butt at Columbia U Journalism events. Columbia kisses it back. But it stopped reporting years ago and got rid of reporters with ethical objections to its editorial decisions.

Such is life.

The industry today, my god, in local TV for instance, you have to pay Channel 8 Style program and Channel 3's Better Connecticut show to be featured on them, but they list both shows as part of their news dept. Kind of surprising, isn't it? But by now, we shouldn't be surprised. They call it a "hybrid." How euphemistic. I call it unethical, plain and simple. It is false advertising to call them news dept. programs.

Oh well. the only nail left to seal the fate of news in this country is the federal shield law, a nasty, compromising, wolf in sheep's clothing that will license a new generation of reporters who have no idea what the press used to stand for, and that it had the guts (in the old days) to stand for it no matter what, with nothing but the First Amendment to protect them.

If RCFP has its way, Julian Assange will be thrown in jail, you will need a license to open your mouth, and RCFP will win a Pulitzer in the category of obscenity-laced sarcasm.

nowadays newspaper publishers are just humongous fish, wrapped in their own.

heres an inside track to matt's master plan....the register is laying off all of their production workers. some of these workers have dedicated their lives to the strength of the company just to be kicked to the curb. matt wants to establish an internet cafe room in downtown New Haven at the cost of some of the finest employees and their families. we have 5 months left before the doors close. the new haven register will be printed in hartford. now you know why they let J. Kramer go. They told us we have to work for the next five months while they negotiate our severence. the carrot on the stick ploy. ...