MOONIE News Paper Near Collapse! Ultra-Right-Wing-Religionist-Conservative WASHINGTON TIMES Falls On Bad One!
Wanting
1982 !
-------------------
"Three top executives ousted by Washington Times"
"Economic downturn appears to be cause of newspaper shake-up"
By Frank Ahrens and Howard Kurtz
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Three top executives at the Washington Times were ousted Monday in a
top-level shake-up prompted by the ongoing economic crisis.
Times president and publisher Thomas P. McDevitt, chief financial
officer Keith Cooperrider and chairman Dong Moon Joo were "relieved of
their duties," according to a statement from the newspaper. Former
Times vice chairman Jonathan Slevin was named acting president and
publisher. The other positions have yet to be filled.
"Our assessment team looks forward to emerging with a market-based
plan that supports the sustainability of The Washington Times and
advances the Times' role as an important source of news and opinion
for readers who value a diversity of information and analysis," Slevin
said in the statement.
Economics appears to be at the heart of the shakeup. The Times,
established in 1982 by Unification Church founder the Rev. Sun Myung
Moon as a politically conservative voice in the nation's capital, has
always been subsidized by the church. At the paper's 20th anniversary,
it was estimated by industry experts that Moon had put more than $1.7
billion into the Times. As such, the Times was largely shielded from
long-term declines in readership and advertising that have hammered
almost every other newspaper, causing deep cuts in coverage and staff,
and even forcing some papers out of business.
But the recession has proved so great as to apparently have touched
even the Times.
"It's safe to say that the conditions impacting a lot of publications
have also impacted the Times, and perhaps more so," said Don Meyer, of
Rubin Meyer Communications in the District, which is handling public
relations for the newspaper.
For members of the Unification Church, questions have become more
urgent in recent years over what will happen when Moon -- nearly 90 --
dies, both to the religious movement he founded as well as the many
businesses the church owns.
Of Moon's 13 children, the mantle generally has been passed to three
sons and a daughter, but specifics have been elusive. Church members
said this week that the shakeup at the Times reflected a power
struggle among the sons.
During the 1980s, the Times enjoyed the favor of the Reagan White
House and scored many scoops. Since then, however, several editors
have worked to professionalize the paper and confine its politically
conservative views to the editorial pages, striving for objective news
coverage.
The most recent to do so is John Solomon, hired as executive editor in
January 2008, following a career as an investigative reporter at The
Washington Post and Associated Press.
It is unclear what the executive shake-up means for Solomon, who could
not be reached for comment. After Solomon left The Post, he hired Post
lobbying reporter Jeff Birnbaum as managing editor.
Unlike his predecessor, current Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden,
Solomon refused to oversee the paper's opinion pages, so as to avoid
the appearance of a conflict of interest. Most newspapers wall off
news and opinion coverage from each other and operate under separate
editors.
Solomon undertook other changes, such as reversing the paper's long-
standing policy -- often criticized from the outside -- of referring
to former first lady and current Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton in headlines as simply "Hillary." Also, Solomon removed the
quote marks the paper typically put around the phrase "gay marriage"
and approved the use of "gay" instead of the Times's preferred
"homosexual."
Most importantly, though, Solomon was charged with making the Times
profitable. He launched a number of initiatives, including a
modernization of the paper's Web site, and moves into other ventures,
such as talk radio, as a way of promoting the paper's brand. As
recently as last week, he was talking up the growth of the paper's Web
site with a Washington Post reporter and trumpeting an agreement for
The Post to distribute the Times.
Within months of being hired, Solomon had laid off 30 of his 200
staffers and doubled the traffic of the Times's Web site. He appeared
to have McDevitt's full confidence as he recast the paper's mission,
but the publisher's ouster removed his chief protector.
McDevitt was a former pastor at Washington's Unification Church. In a
1999 speech, he referred to the Times and Moon, who is known as
"Father" in the church: "Father . . . feels absolutely confident that
it's through the media and communications industry that absolute
wealth and prosperity will grow. It gave me hope. I think it gave the
Washington Times hope about achieving profitability in our media
companies."
[Staff writer Michelle Boorstein contributed to this report.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/09/AR2009110902529.html