Doing Less with Less   

Rem Rieder's column on newsroom cutbacks was well said (Full Court Press, December/ January). There is nothing more depressing to newsroom morale than having editorial leaders who feel obligated to tell party line lies to a room full of people that they know will never believe them. It also has to be so demeaning to the editors who are asked to make these kind of wackadoo statements.

From a reader perspective, can you trust an editor to make good news decisions when he is willing to print a news story that includes the dubious assertion that having fewer people will allow the paper to do more things with better quality (and probably cure cancer, too)?

Dave Mastio
Editor
BlogNetNews.com
Norfolk, Virginia

Perhaps what worries me most about our industry is that so many CEOs, COOs and publishers have failed to realize that community newspapers have just one franchise left that we can truly call our own — local news. Sure, there are bloggers and Web sites with all kinds of crap out there, but in most communities we're still the trusted, authoritative source of local news with any depth. But where do the first cuts come? Newsrooms take the brunt of reductions in force because they are not "revenue producers." I would beg to differ. Without our newsrooms and the content they produce, we are merely shoppers. And I would challenge ANY publisher to try to get the same ad rates in a community shopper that they get in a community newspaper.

Rick Thomason
Publisher
Walton Sun & Destin Log
Santa Rosa Beach, Florida