H-L finds a Higher Ed Reporter

Welcome Ryan Alessi. This is great news. Next - H-L finds a K-12 reporter?

This from John Stamper at PolWatchers:

If you didn't read to the end of Ryan Alessi's Notebook column today, you missed the important part. Here it is:

My last political column

After more than four years of writing the weekly political notebook column, this is my final one.

Later this month, I will begin covering Kentucky's colleges and universities, as well as higher education policies and trends, for the Herald-Leader.

It's a new challenge that I'm eager to tackle. But it doesn't signal a cutback in the Herald-Leader's commit ment to covering state government and politics. Eventually, a new political writer will be named.

For the nearly six years I served in that capacity, I had the tremendous fortune of learning from some of the most knowledgeable and insightful sources and analysts, who patiently taught me the history and nuances
of Kentucky's unique and colorful brand of politics.

And although the ranks of the Frankfort press corps have shrunk in recent years, a host of talented reporters remain. Many of those journalists — starting with the dean of the Capitol press corps, the Herald-Leader's Jack Brammer, and including some of this newspaper's chief competitors — unknowingly served as role models for me.

To all of them and to those dedicated readers of the Herald-Leader's political coverage, I will be forever grateful.

Kentucky already has benefited so much from Ryan Alessi. He's the hardest working person I've ever known. Period. It was Ryan's decision to take on the challenge of a new beat and there's no doubt that he'll succeed magnificently. He always does. In the meantime, we'll do our best to patch up the gaping hole his absence creates in our Frankfort bureau as quickly as possible, but we've got our work cut out for us.

Lexington Herald-Leader Struggling Financially

Mark Hebert reports from an AP story:

The AP is reporting that the Lexington Herald-Leader will be offering a ... buyout plan to its employees in an effort to cut costs.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- With circulation declining, the Lexington Herald-Leader has told employees it will offer voluntary buyout packages this month to reduce its work force.

Publisher Timothy M. Kelly told employees Tuesday that the company expects
to accept about 4 percent of the paper's 385 full-time employees and managers
for the program. That would be about 15 employees, but the newspaper says the
actual total could be different...

Dunbar student in crash dies

The 17-year-old died yesterday at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, a day after the accident that also injured three fellow Dunbar students. The four had been on their way to school.

A blown tire caused the driver to lose control of the 1993 Geo Prizm and the car spun, slamming into a vehicle parked in the emergency lane on Versailles Road near Calumet Farm, according to police.

This from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

False Profits: continuing speculation on the future of newspapers

This Slate piece by Jack Shafer cites continued expectations for twenty percent profit margins in the newspaper industry as having destructive effects on the quality of journalism and future web-based development – which is where the growth is. These historically high expectations are the result of conditions that no longer exist; as technology eliminates monopoly.

Last fall, former Lexington Herald-Leader and Los Angeles Times Editor John Carroll decried these conditions on NewsHour. He discussed corporate pressure for profits, and conflicts between those who see themselves as serving the shareholders and those who see themselves serving the reader. “I think every good editor has a point which he has to define for himself, at which he must quit or resist, rather than damage the paper further.” Carroll left the LA Times last year and is now the Knight visiting lecturer at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

In this era of publicly owned newspaper chains, money has overshadowed all else. And obligations to journalism, obligations to the community have fallen by the wayside to a considerable extent, and that is really the tension that's causing this problem. If owners reduced expectations to 10 percent profit margins, Carroll said, circulation would probably start growing. "And we would be able to invest very heavily in the Web, which is crucial to the paper's future," Carroll said. "At a 20 percent margin, I feel strongly that we are cashing in the paper's future in favor of current earnings."

“My topic is an urgent one: nothing less than the fate of journalism,” said Carroll. “The economic underpinnings of our craft are eroding. At the same time, the Web is offering rich opportunities for journalism in new forms. And, in the current scramble for market share, the work of the principled journalist is being lost in a din of marketing and propaganda...As a matter of public policy, a self-governing nation simply cannot do without real journalism...”