Dallas News Publisher Jim Moroney Really Wants to Stress, "Our Content Isn't For Sale"

The Dallas Observer - Late this evening, Dallas Morning News publisher and chief executive officer Jim Moroney called to discuss editor Bob Mong's memo concerning the paper's new "business/news integration," which has some of the paper's section editors reporting directly to newly assigned advertising-side higher-ups. Moroney said he'd been on the phone all afternoon with Bloomberg News and The New York Times having to explain the arrangement. It wasn't till late today, Moroney said, that he saw our original item, and he took exception to a single line contained therein: "In short, those who sell ads for A.H. Belo's products will now dictate content within A.H. Belo's products."

"That one line got to me a little bit: 'They will dictate content,'" he said. "I think people will read that as, 'Whatever sells the most will be the content that'll get put online and in the paper.' But it's about the audience first. If we don't have a loyal, engaged audience, advertisers will fade away. Our content isn't for sale. If it is, we're out of business."

As I explained to Moroney, Mong's tortuously written memo -- which he explained to Unfair Park in a follow-up interview this morning -- certainly suggested at the very least a demolition of the wall that keeps a paper's sales-siders out of the newsroom. Said the memo, executive sports editor Bob Yates and Lifestyles deputy managing editor Lisa Kresl, among others, will report to so-called "general managers" now, thereby creating "a new business segment structure as the next step toward becoming the most comprehensive and trusted partner for local businesses." Sure sounds like dogs and cats living together.

Moroney said he understood how outsiders could get that perception from the memo, which has since made the virtual rounds on Gawker, The Huffington Post, Editor & Publisher, The Chicago Tribune and Jim Romenesko's Poynter blog. Fact is, Moroney acknowledged, even those on the inside read it that way.

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/12/now_its_the_newss_publishers_t.php