Media Monitor: May 15

Strib reorganization plan revealed: As the Star Tribune newsroom reorganization that’s expected to leave 50 reporters and editors without work continues, it appears readers rep Kate Parry still has a job. But, at The Rake, Brian Lambert is auditioning for the gig nonetheless, offering a writing sample in the form of the column Parry should’ve written.

Meanwhile, Parry offered a verbal glimpse of the reorganization chart revealed yesterday. Among the slots to be filled are several up to now covered by two individuals, including a lone visual arts/architecture writer, a single media/TV critic, and shared roles for photographers who now will serve as videographers as well. But suburbs appear to get the heaviest focus. Parry wrote that zoned editions of the paper are being considered and that reporters will be assigned to cover Bloomington/Edina, Eden Prairie/Chanhassen/Chaska, Carver/Scott counties, Hennepin County, and Dakota County.

D.C. bureau to “go dark”: In this morning’s paper, Strib reporter Matt McKinney reports that the newspaper’s Washington D.C. bureau “will go dark next week” when Brady Averill finishes her internship. For more than two months, she has been the paper’s only D.C. reporter. Barnes said a reporter will be named “soon.”

McKinney’s money quote: Despite plans to cut one of its four metro columnists, consolidate the Scene and Source sections on Fridays, cutting columns by James Lileks and Randy Salas, nixing Mindworks, and eliminating staff positions in Features, McKinney writes, “Barnes denied that the current reorganization is a sign that the [October 2005] redesign was a failure, noting that many of its design changes will stay.” 

A March report showed the paper’s circulation fared worse than others nationally: its weekday numbers dropped 4.8 percent, while Sunday circulation dipped 5.1 percent compared to the same period last year. Papers nationally averaged 2.1 percent and 3.1 percent drops, respectively.

Strib promotions announced: Yesterday afternoon, Strib managing editor Scott Gillespie and editor Nancy Barnes sent out a staff e-mail announcing three promotions:

Jill Burcum will be the assistant managing editor in charge of the new enterprise desk we are creating as part of the reorganized newsroom. Duchesne Drew, our assistant managing editor for business, will become assistant managing editor for local news, overseeing our St. Paul, Minneapolis, night and suburban teams. And Eric Wieffering will be moving back to Business as assistant managing editor for business news. Duchesne is taking over the position that Dennis McGrath will be leaving to lead our online and newsroom political coverage.

K-Hoff’s MySpace case study: City Pages editor Kevin Hoffman gets the lead mention in an Utne Reader story on how we’ve “become so comfortable with online commerce, instant correspondence, and daily confession that personal privacy is being redefined and, some argue, blithely forfeited.” Written by editor David Schimke, formerly of City Pages, it begins:

It’s a good guess that the last thing the newly hired editor of an alternative newspaper would want a grizzled group of journalists to know is that the person he’d most like to meet is Howard Stern. Yet hours after Kevin Hoffman was tapped to take the helm at City Pages, staffers at the Minneapolis weekly, who had yet to meet the 30-year-old in person, were reading all about their new leader’s love of Stern, ultimate fighting, and The Real World on his MySpace page and sketching a less than favorable caricature.

Hoffman’s MySpace profile is now only available to his MySpace “friends.”

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