"As America is beset with increasingly serious and complex problems, our distant corporate owners are turning us into a tabloid full of press releases ... we're desperate for paid subscribers but we're trying to bring them in by offering less.  It's not going to work.  It's wrong and I want no part of it."

Voice from a Baltimore Sun Guild rally video July 17th protesting the loss of 100 jobs in the newsroom.

The big question is whether we who left voluntarily through buyouts have the right to continue to pontificate about Tribune and its legion of problems.  Did we leave because we couldn't stay and watch our newspapers deteriorate into what my doctor called "a pennysaver that costs money?"  Did we desert when we should have stayed and fought on?

For myself, I left because without a union there was no recourse to fight bad management.  And that is bad management both locally and from the Trib Tower.  All those employees in the newsroom of The Morning Call, and especially those who have already left, must have had a moment of reflection on their assinine decision to petition to decertify the Newspaper Guild back in 2004.  In return they received a whopping 1.5% raise, an extra personal day and a 2-cent increase in mileage reimbursment.  Whoopee!  What they lost was much greater.  Of course, if we look at the Baltimore Sun, having the Guild's backing did little to stave off the slash and burn newsroom cuts, so perhaps it's all a moot point.

I no longer work for Tribune.  But I still care about the fate of newspapers, and especially the ones tied to the Trib name. We have been through a firestorm of "managed change" together.  I am sure the workers from Newsday had a huge "We're Free!" party even as they were taking down their sign in Tribune's New York office.

Is the future in colored boxes and cut-out clipping-mask figures?  Are we targeting the right people?  Who really reads a newspaper anymore anyway?  Will a lot of flash and infopablum make a difference in circulation numbers?  It's doubtful.  Bakersfield Californian CEO Richard Beene told Editor & Publisher that his company made the decision to "fish where the fish were, and that's a readership that is older, more affluent and better educated."  Target Baby Boomers--what a novel idea!  They're only the largest demographic group in the country, and are traditionally the ones who enjoy a daily newspaper.  Instead, we seem to be alienating them at the expense of trying to attract younger people to the core product.  They ain't gonna come, partner.