The readers are always the last thing we talk about. That sad confession, reported by Times media critic David Shaw in his astonishing pre-Christmas opus on the newspaper's Staples Center scandal, seemed to succinctly dramatize the changes that have swept through the Times in the Mark Willes era. And not just at the Times . In the old days, newspaper reporters wrote the news, editors massaged the stories and put them in the paper, and the business-side people figured out how to sell the advertising and subscriptions. Today, they're all in it together.
Cooperation is the watchword at many papers.
Editors serve on strategy committees with the ad and circulation and marketing people. Editors here and there grumble. So do some older reporters. But few are truly horrified by the new realities. But once the beast roused itself, it truly roared.