Wednesday, August 10, 2005

The New Chief

Greetings,

So we've got a new top dog for the Daily News, as our interim editor-in-chief Ron Kaye becomes the full-time head of the paper. I went and had a chat with him today to see what all he'll be up to as our new leader and came away feeling pretty good about things.

I've had my disagreements with Ron over the years, since we're both pretty hard-headed guys. But with his newfound responsibilities, he seems to be singing a different tune, one that should lead to good things if it's implemented. He says he wants the paper to be more fun, for the staff to come up with more ideas rather than being managed top-down and for there to be more discussion and dialogue in the newsroom. This is the rare time that the management and the union will find themselves in complete agreement.

The Daily News has had trouble changing for a long, long time and it's sorely in need of some energy and good feeling in that newsroom we all report for work in each day. I don't think that the change will come overnight, but Ron seems to have a good idea of what we need to do, so the only trick will be for us to get there together.

Since he says he wants the ideas to rise up from the staff, let's take him up on that. We've got a rare opportunity here with a new guy in the boss chair to pick up the good concepts started under Dave Butler and bring in new ones to pep the place up. It'll be bumpy at times, disagreements will arise, but at least he's pledging to be open to fixing up the parts that need work. He says he wants us to stand up for our work, stand up for what we believe in-- that's great, we should do just that.

This is not the time to be complacent to see how things will change-- it's the time for us to work together to shape this paper we love into a better place. That's always been the mission of this union, regardless of who we're working with as an editor, so let's welcome Ron to his new duties and throw ourselves into our own. If he lives up to his stated goal and we contribute our own ideas along the way, we'll all end up better off.

And that's it for me for now... more news to follow.

-Brent

Oh, while it's fresh on my mind, if you missed him today, our very own Josh Kleinbaum made an appearance on Nancy Grace's CNN show to provide info on this bizarre Iryna Singerman story. Looking sharp, Josh-- nice work on both the story and the appearance.

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