Tribune Co. Slashing Workforce by 6 Percent

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The Los Angeles Times today reported that its parent, Chicago-based Tribune Co., is pink-slipping 6 percent of its workforce, 700 jobs, over the next year to offset plunging advertising revenues among its eight-newspapers.

As part of the cost-savings, the Times article said functions, such as advertising and circulation, will be centralized and consolidated, rather than managed at each individual newspaper. The Tribune Co. has been shopping its newspaper holdings, which include the Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Baltimore Sun and flagship Chicago Tribune, as it shifts its emphasis to its broadcasting stable(see "TUOL" posts 9/27/13 & 7/10/13).

The Times article said most of the layoffs will involve non-editorial positions. The planned reductions are a response to print revenues that dropped almost $200 million over the past two years and are down $62 million over the first three-quarters of 2013, according to the Times article.

Fox CT Apologizes for Focus on 'Headlights', Not Headlines

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Sheepishly admitting in a statement that "the video should never have aired," Fox CT will apologize on its newscasts today for puerile file footage that accompanied a story commemorating Women's Day at the state Capitol, the Hartford Courant reports.

Sponsored by the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women ("PCSW"), the Women's Day celebration this year attracted former Ms. and Essence editor Marcia Gillespie as its keynote speaker. The annual Capitol event, however, apparently doesn't impress some unidentified neanderthal in the Fox CT newsroom, where the footage backing the station's report on the event zeroed in on the fully clothed breasts of various women, igniting a firestorm of well-deserved criticism on social media platforms. The Courant story includes comments from the Connecticut NOW co-president and PCSW's executive director expressing anger and disappointment over the station's blunder.

Both the Courant and Fox CT share a newsroom and are part of the Tribune Co.-owned CT 1 Media.

Looks as if the real "boobs" in this story are working for Fox CT.

Hartford Courant Unprepared for Plagiarized Boy Scouts Article

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The Tribune Co.-owned Hartford Courant, Connecticut's largest daily newspaper, this month accepted the resignation of reporter Hillary Federico, whom the daily acknowledged in a Nov. 1 "Setting the Record Straight" note purportedly committed plagiarism on two occasions in articles about quilting and the Boy Scouts.

According to a post by the iMediaEthics Web site (www.imediaethics.org), the Courant, whose daily circulation is roughly 132,000, questioned an article written by Federico on Aug. 24, 2012, about the Boy Scouts and a second piece about quilting that appeared in the Courant on March 16, 2012. The former allegedly mirrored an article written by Brad Mead that appeared on the Simsbury Patch Web site and before that, on the Simsbury Troop 175 Web site. Mead is the troop's scoutmaster.

The Courant apologized to readers in its Nov. 1 note. The daily has in recent years been tainted by plagiarism (see "TUOL" posts 11/29/11, 12/4/09, 9/4/09).

New Haven Not Safe Haven for Printers

Image via WikipediaThe New Haven Register will slash 105 jobs in March when it closes its printing operations, the New Haven Independent announced this week.

The Hartford Courant will print the Register, along with two other Journal Register East-owned papers, the Middletown Press and Torrington Register. The move is part of the Register's Digital First strategy, which touts the daily's online edition. Besides outsourcing printing, JRE plans to centralize back-office operations out-of-state, according to the Independent article.

The company plans to relocate its editorial offices and unload its Long Wharf facility.

UPDATE: Hartford Courant Settles 'Hot News' Copyright Suit with Journal-Inquirer

Image via WikipediaSettlement terms were not disclosed, but the Tribune Co.-owned Hartford Courant earlier this month quietly ended its defense of a copyright infringement/"hot news" suit brought against it by the Manchester Journal-Inquirer (see "TUOL" post 12/4/09), PaidContent.org reported.

The Journal Inquirer sued for $1.65 million, claiming that the Courant plagiarized its stories about education and local water issues, posting some on the Courant Web site without attribution. The Courant apologized to its readers in September 2009 (see "TUOL" post 9/4/09) for its ersatz news aggregating practices.

With the parties' out-of-court resolution, journalism junkies are deprived of seeing the Journal Inquirer's "stealing news" accusation played out in open court. The Courant had contended that its news aggregating came under the fair use exception to the plaintiff's copyright infringement count, and denied the re-written stories at issue constituted "hot news." The so-called hot news doctrine, which amounts to a property right in information, dates back to an Associated Press case decided by the Supreme Court in 1913, but enjoyed a revival of sorts last year with a New York case involving a financial services Website.

Suit Claims Hartford Courant News Copy Copied News of Journal Inquirer

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The Manchester (Conn.) Journal Inquirer is seeking up to $1.65 million from The Hartford Courant for what it alleges are 11 distinct instances in which the Courant plagiarized stories from the rival daily.

The suit in Hartford County Superior Court (Journal Publishing Co., Inc. v. The Hartford Courant Co.) includes counts alleging copyright infringment, conversion, unjust enrichment and violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act based on stories that appeared in the Courant from Aug. 4 to Sept. 11 this year. The Courant's Publisher, Richard Graziano, published a letter of apology in the Courant on Sept. 4 acknowledging that the paper had plagiarized stories from competitors, adding that was "not our intent."

The Journal Inquirer seeks damages of $150,000 for each of the 11 purported acts of copyright infringement. The complaint intimates that staff reductions at the Courant may be partly to blame for the alleged infraction.

Not au courant, but oh Courant!

Ex-Consumer Scribe Sues Hartford Courant for Suppressing Free Speech

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For more than four decades, reporter George Gombossy toiled at The Hartford Courant, the last two years as a consumer watchdog columnist.

Now Gombossy, who was ousted by the Tribune Co-owned daily this past summer, has sued his former employer for allegedly violating his free speech rights after he allegedly told his editors that he planned to write a column about a state probe of Sleepy's mattress company, a Courant advertiser.

The case filed in Hartfrod County Superior Court (Gombossy v. Hartford Courant Communications et al, HHD-cv09-5033169-S) seeks attorneys' fees and punitive damages, along with past and future economic damages, including retirement benefits. Gombossy contends that management pressured him when he blogged or wrote columns that were critical of Courant advertisers.

The defendants have not responded to the Complaint, but previously have said Gombossy's job loss was a business decision. Gombossy presently runs his own consumer-oriented Web site.

To update the old adage, the Courant should know better than to argue with someone who buys bytes by the barrel.

Courant Hiring of Hoops Coach's Daughter Out-of-Bounds

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The Hartford Courant  has hired Alysa Auriemma to contribute monthly as a "celebrity blogger" in its sports department. It does a father proud.

The father in this case is Geno Auriemma, who has coached the UConn Huskies women's basketball team since 1985, amassing five national championships along the way.  Courant sports editor Jeff Otterbein apparently sees no problem with having the coach's daughter on the payroll, which would put him in the distinct minority.

The next time Coach Auriemma sits down with a Courant reporter for an interview, it could raise the specter of preferential treatment being given to his daughter's employer.  The appearance of conflict of interest in the news business is serious business.

Whistle the Courant for a flagrant foul on this move.

An Aggregate Apology from The Hartford Courant

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Tribune Co.-owned The Hartford Courant has published a letter of apology from CEO, President and Publisher Richard J. Graziano for engaging in news aggregating practices that the Courant conceded amounted to plagiarism.

"We have determined that over the last several weeks the Courant plagiarized the work of some of our competitors," Graziano wrote. "This was not our intent, but it is in fact what happened. We are taking corrective action to prevent it from happening again. We have also disciplined the individuals involved." The letter did not detail what the remedial measures are.

The Courant aggregated news from across Connecticut, but failed to attribute the origin of some of the content that it posted, prompting a letter of complaint of misappropriation from Managing Editor Chris Powell of the Manchester Journal Inquirer. Michael Miner, who writes The Blog for www.chicagoreader.com, alleges that the Courant posted stories from other Connecticut newspapers on its Web site, some of which found their way into the print edition of the Courant under the byline of a Courant reporter. In a press release, The Society of Professional Journalists minced no words in characterizing the Courant's conduct as "theft."

The Courant  is Connecticut's largest daily newspaper. The paper has been publishing since 1764.