There’s a great assessment of the Courier-Journal layoffs, and the uncertainty of Velocity’s future, by former LEO editor Cary Stemle in the current LEO. Stemle remembers what a threat to LEO’s future Velocity was way back in 2003. Gannett’s rag, which currently seems to be in purgatory, will never be the same, even if they somehow figure out how to publish it without any staffers. Stemle has a pretty complete list of the C-J’s cuts, including news that one victim, Velocity editor Tom Nord, was rehired immediately. Good for him.
As a former LEO columnist, I have always sided with the independent operation in debates over which paper was best, a staple question in those Louisville Magazine profiles (LEO or Velocity?). LEO seems to be thriving, despite several personnel changes (rumor: another staff writer is leaving) and its sister publication, NFocus, appears to be growing monthly.
LEO has smartly stuck to the core of its mission — highlighting news, arts and music — and weathered the most difficult financial period for media. Sure, it misfired with a neighborhood annual and another focused on downtown. But it has continued to hire editors and writers that make it a must-read. And it seems to have a hit with NFocus.
This month, NFocus has cool dude Gill Holland on the cover in a more serious look than I’ve even seen on him.
Most people in media seem to believe that the C-J, as Stemle put it, is in a death spiral — “…stuck in a paradoxical and inexorable downward dive in which it cuts its core products to save money, then suffers public backlash, then cuts again and so on.”
I don’t think the C-J will die, but it really should be thriving. Take a look at recent issues of local publications like The Voice-Tribune, which has transformed its reputation from reflecting on local events in pictures to a go-to newspaper with legitimate news and features. Even free local publications, like Today’s Woman, have thrived while Gannett’s attempts to copy them have failed.
You can’t chalk the C-J’s failures up to the Internet or the decline of print. There’s plenty of interest in local news and information. No, the behemoth at Sixth and Broadway is weighed down by a corporate parent intent on squeezing profit from each of the communities in which it operates.
