After looking through hundreds of comments on Twitter about the “bold” and rather odd reorganization at the Dallas Morning News, one freelance copy editor summarized in a tweet: “Consensus: apocalypse.”
The comments she read through were attached to retweets of a link to a blog of the Daily Observer in Dallas. Robert Wilonsky republished a memo from Bob Mong, Dallas Morning News editor, and Cyndy Carr, senior vice president for sales, that laid out a strategy for “business/news integration” in which editors would report to general managers responsible for different segments of advertising sales.
“I think I just heard the wall fall,” a friend tweeted me. “Journalism: Dead in Dallas,” said another.
Twitter conversations can be an interesting way to gauge opinion. The Web site bit.ly compiles data on links it provides, and it allows a quick look at hundreds of comments added to Twitter messages as people pass along a link.
Reading through bit.ly’s list, at http://bit.ly/info/6d5AHv, one can almost feel the collective gasp.
Here are the comments on the bit.ly list at 3 the afternoon the story came out.They are mostly in order, with Twitter names, links and repetition removed. I didn’t look for the controversial or clever. I didn’t have to. This is pretty much all of them. It’s a long list, but a quick skim will give you an idea:
- Okay, this is the worst thing to happen in the history of the printed page
- I just died a little
- Wait, what?!: wow, Dallas Morning News editors reporting to ad sales
- Yikes is right. RT Yikes. Dallas News has a bold new strategy. Yikes.
- Mourning the Dallas Morning News. Because what’s happened there means it’s no longer a newspaper. It’s an ad circular
- Commenter said: “DMN RIP.”
- Holy cow!
- Wow. Unbelievable
- Ugh; it’s wrong on so many levels.
- This is not ok
- More pervasive that you’d think…
- Really interesting developments in Dallas, where some editors will now report to sales managers
- OMG! News is all about ad revenue now.
- uh-oh
- Dallas Morning News editors now report to ad sales managers. Seems the death of real journalism is upon us
- Bold strategy n DMN reorg: Breakng dwn old walls (between sales & edit)
- oh yeah, this is good for society.
- OMFG. I quit. Journalism R.I.P. “Dallas News, a New “Bold Strategy”: Section Editors Reporting to Sales Managers”
- I’m devoting a week’s worth out outrage to this
- Surely nothing bad could come of this
- Very disturbing: Editors reporting to sales folks.
- Editors to report to Sales Managers at The Dallas News (Nothing bad could happen here, right)
- OMG! Stop the madness: Dallas Morning News editors now report to sales managers.
- So very wrong
- Newsroom and Sales integration in Dallas? They say progressive. I say bad idea for content integrity
- Really, is it already time to sell your soul? Dallas Morning News editors now report to sales teams.
- This memo must be a few years old. Advertisers have been guiding “news” in this fish wrapper for a long time.
- Yeah, WTF??
- And the wall came crumbling down
- Well, the Dallas Morning News has ceased to be a newspaper.
- First sign of the apocalypse?
- Recipe for total disaster
- The end of the world as we know it. Editors reporting to sales people.
- Whoa.
- Wha- What?
- Journalism FAIL
- Probably not the best way to foster journalistic integrity
- dear, sweet God in heaven, yes. > Did the Dallas Morning News just jump the shark?
- It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel … rather queasy.
- not in my newspaper
- wow, Dallas Morning News editors reporting to ad sales
- It’s like the journalism end of days
- Wow. This is new ground.
- •ridiculous.
- If all true, this is nuts
- Dallas News makes The Onion irrelevant …
- I just died a little
- Dallas Morning News sections now report to sales staff. In case you needed more bad news about journalism…
- Wow indeed! Putting ads in charge of news #journfail
- wow, Dallas Morning News eds reporting to ad sales
- This is not ok
- This is so very wrong
- Sad state of affairs in “journalism.”
- that’s transparency, but not substantive change
- Unbelievable, ridiculous.
- Another sign of the journalistic apocalypse facing the newspaper business
- My newspaper and journalism friends, it’s a dark day for journalistic integrity
- The #DMN has sold its soul.
- taking things further: Dallas Morning News section editors to report directly to sales execs
- splain it to me, pls. I just don’t see how sales managers bossing news editors can work
- If I find out this is happening at B-CS Eagle, I may cry.
- What could possibly go wrong, journalistically speaking ?
- A huge nail in the nearly finished newspaper coffin
- •Scary direction for the DMN.
- This looks like a steaming pile of bad judgment
- Wow, this is like the most astoundingly bad idea ever
- God help us all
- I have no words
- DMN turns over editorial content to the ad reps. Can we just count that as another dead paper?
- Holy schnike
- OK, you got me. That was a bigger WTF! than me seeing Tiger all over my front page this morning. WTF!
- So much for church/state
- Scary
- Ahhhh!!
- Is this the future of journalism?
- La foto de cómo sí desaparecerán los periódicos… y el periodismo. Editores reportando al Jefe de Ventas en Dallas.
- They’d B OK w/editors replaced by Enquirer staffers
- No. WHAT?!
- Editorial to report to sales directorate at Dallas News. Un-bee-LIEVE-able.
- this is like the most astoundingly bad idea ever
- Wow!
- A really different way of doing a newspaper, courtesy of the DMN
- So what do the editor and managing editor do now?
- Some Dallas Morning News editors now report to SALES managers… Wow.
- And people wonder why “news” is so sanitized.
- “To a dark place this line of thought will carry us.”
- Well, there goes any trust I had in the DMN. Sales department now supervises
- Oh. This is not good.
- GASP!!!
- Whoa
- Kinda long, kinda freaky: newspaper hands editorial reigns to the ad sales dept!
- Another newspaper bites the dust. The Dallas News hands the newsroom over to the sales dept
- Mr. Editor, tear … down … this … wall!