Social Media, Rules and John Paton

John Paton is CEO of the Journal-Register Company. JRC publishes the New Haven Register and bunch of other papers in and out of Connecticut. I work for Tribune Company which owns FoxCT, The Hartford Courant and others. So, to be perfectly clear, Paton runs the competition.

At the moment the newspaper business sucks. Only time will tell, but a case can be made John Paton is a visionary who will lead newspapers from their malaise.

John Paton is CEO of the Journal-Register Company. JRC publishes the New Haven Register and bunch of other papers in and out of Connecticut. I work for Tribune Company which owns FoxCT, The Hartford Courant and others. So, to be perfectly clear, Paton runs the competition.

At the moment the newspaper business sucks. Only time will tell, but a case can be made John Paton is a visionary who will lead newspapers from their malaise.

What John Paton says and does is a big deal because the industry watchws him. His influence is larger than his company’s circulation would imply.

Today Last year John Paton said ‘anything goes’ for JRC employees using social media.

Some of you have asked what are JRC’s Employee Rules For Using Social Media. To keep it simple I have reduced them to three:

1.

2.

3.

Yes, blank.

By removing rules Paton is saying objective reporters are allowed to have subjective opinions. That flies in the face of journalism over the last fifty years.

Back while I was at Channel 8 corporate management attempted to impose the opposite kind of policy. To their credit when shown the modern impracticality of muffling social media they relented. As far as I know that policy died a quiet death.

A noisier policy battle pitted reporter Rinker Buck and his blog versus the Hartford Courant. I suspect (years, management and policy changes later) it would be a non-issue today.

Everything we know about traditional media has changed! Some see extinction ahead. Others are looking for a way to move on. I’m rooting for the latter.

Note: For some reason I thought this was a new entry by Paton. It is not, but it’s still worth noting.

Bad Times / Good People

People had been there for 25 or more years and the worst part is, their loyalty paid off for nothing in the end. Seems to be the state of affairs anymore.

I heard a rumor a local news anchor has taken a pay cut and lost a newscast as financial conditions deteriorate. With a young child, maybe this is what she wants. Maybe it isn’t.

The Journal Register Company, publisher of a few Connecticut daily newspapers, including the New Haven Register I get every morning, is suffering as well. Already a ruthless cost cutter, JRC seems to have run out of things to cut.

From Editor & Publisher:

Journal Register Co., its stock now selling at about the cover price of its newspapers, disclosed Thursday that it is in danger of being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The Yardley, Pa.-based publisher of the Trentonian in Trenton, N.J., said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it had been notified by the NYSE that it had fallen below the Big Board’s “continued listing standard” of minimum share price.

This morning ATA, a discount regional airline announced they were shutting down. Ben Popken at Consumerist.com interviewed a now cashiered employee.

benpopken: What was the mood like once people started finding out?

ATAinsider: Very sad. It seemed somewhat inevitable, but we all had hopes, you know? People had been there for 25 or more years and the worst part is, their loyalty paid off for nothing in the end. Seems to be the state of affairs anymore.

We’re now entering the part of a recession where no one, outside economists, sees the way out. You’ll be hearing lots of the word “cyclical” describing our economy, with little explanation of how and why it’s cyclical, attached.

Even if the economy has always been cyclical, there’s no guarantee it will be this time, or that you won’t be the excess weight tossed overboard as companies scramble to preserve profits and managers scramble to save their own jobs.

Alas, business is never more likely to share equitably than when times are bad.