Ft. Worth Star-Telegram Pares Staff; Will Be Printed by Dallas Morning News

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McClatchy Co.-owned Ft. Worth Star-Telegram is slashing its workforce by 275 and will be printed by The Dallas Morning News beginning in the First Quarter of 2014, the Dallas Business Journal reported today.

Seventy-five full-time and 200 part-time staffers are being trimmed by the Star-Telegram, and will be eligible for benefits and severance pay. The Morning News may hire a dozen workers to handle the extra printing load, the Business Journal reported.

The two Texas dailies have shared editorial content in recent years.

Teens Poke Classmate in Facebook Ruse; End Up in Pokey

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram reports that two Granbury (Texas) middle-schoolers, ages 12 and 13, who allegedly created a false Facebook page about a 12-year-old classmate, have been charged with online impersonation, a third-degree felony, and face up to 10 years in jail if convicted.

The target of the false page does not participate in Facebook, so the false page flourished for a month and attracted 63 friends before it was shut down, the daily reports. The defendants allegedly featured a celebrity on the fake page who purportedly resembles the victim, and according to the Hood County Sheriff, the page contained profanity and alleged threats against other students that harmed the victim's reputation.

To combat cyberbullying, the Texas legislature passed the online impersonation measure in 2009. Free speech advocates, including the Student Press Law Center, have questioned the constitutionality of the law.

Ft. Worth Editorial Massacre

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)Newspapers don't re-shift their emphasis to digital media platforms without bloodletting, and according to media Web site Romanesko.com, pink slips are flying fast and furiously in the newsroom of the McClatchy Co.-owned Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.

A dozen editorial staffers, including several copy editors and Managing Editor Lois Norder, are the latest casualties in the daily's restructuring, according to Romanesko. Reportedly, Kathy Vetter, the paper's managing editor for digital, will be in charge of the paper's whole local news operation.

McClatchy Co. Reports 1Q Earnings Decline

Image via WikipediaSacramento, Calif.-based media conglomerate McClatchy Co. today reported First Quarter revenues in 2011 were 9.5 percent lower than the corresponding period in 2010.

McClatchy, which counts 30 daily newspapers and numerous weeklies among its holdings, saw ad revenues in 1Q of 2011 plunge 11 percent, while circulation decreased by 5 percent compared to a year ago. Layoffs at McClatchy papers such as The Sacramento Bee and The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram have been chronicled in this blog (see "TUOL" posts 2/9/11, 2/1/11).

Newspaper Ad Absolving Mayor Part of Libel Claim Settlement

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Since the seminal U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S. Ct. 710 (1964), it's been a tough row to hoe for public officials involved in libel suits.  To prevail on a defamation claim, the public official has the burden of proving that the allegedly defamatory statements concerning him or her not only are false and harmed his or her reputation, but also that the statements were made with actual malice, that is, with knowledge that the statements were false or with reckless disregard of whether the statements were false.

But, according to a report in The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, that didn't stop former Keller (Tex.) Mayor Julie Tandy from hammering out a favorable, if unusal, settlement of her defamation claim against Keller resident Jack Brock. Besides forking over $50,000 to make Tandy "whole" from the damage she purportedly sustained from the allegedly libelous statements, Brock also has to dole out $900 for an ad in The Keller Citizen retracting the allegedly defamatory statements that appeared in an ad he ran in the Citizen May 4, 2007, eight days before the election in which incumbent Mayor Tandy was defeated.

Brock, who was embroiled in a condemnation proceeding dispute with the city concerning the acquisition of a drainage easement on property he owned, paid for an ad in The Keller Citizen in May 2007, that accused Tandy of engaging in fraudulent conduct by allegedly backdating her signature on certain documents and of voting to "steal" his property.  Consequently, the ad running in the Citizen pursuant to the parties' resolution of the suit specifically retracts the signature backdating charge, acknowledges that Tandy didn't even cast a vote in the matter at issue, and says that Tandy, in his view, did not engage in criminal conduct as Mayor.

The outcome is a favorable one for the ex-Mayor and also for The Keller Citizen, which winds up with revenues from two paid ads in the controversy, no small feat in these ad-hungry times for newspapers.