Posts Tagged ‘John S. Carroll’

This afternoon, former LA Times editor John S. Carroll received the 63rd William Allen White Foundation award from the University of Kansas’ journalism school. He took the opportunity to share some observations about the current state of the news business.

Carroll suggested print journalism has suffered three successive and devastating blows from the introduction of corporations in the newsroom, the advent of cable television and the arrival of Internet. He also urged students and faculty to do better. Via The University Daily Kansan:

“We need to find a way to separate journalism from trash journalism,” Carroll said, meaning journalists who only seek to report on celebrities and those who use their journalism as propaganda or marketing.

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Aw! We just love when someone besides us calls Sam Zell an idiot.

Of course, he could have us killed for his pocket change…he is a billionaire. Of course he’s also too cheap to pay for his own freaking lawyer while beat reporters are getting laid off. So maybe we’ll live to insult another day!

John S. Carroll was editor of the Los Angeles Times from 2000 to 2005 before that he was at the The Baltimore Sun. He talked with Executive Editor Tom Linthicum from the Maryland Daily Record.

From the Daily Record:

“Zell may be a genius in other lines of work, but he is an idiot in terms of journalism,” Carroll said.

Waller, who retired from The Sun in 2003, also had choice words for Tribune’s business practices.

“Tribune management confuses innovation with idiocy,” he said. “I could wear my underwear over my trousers and Tribune would think that’s innovation. Everybody else would think I was wacko.”

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