Cutting Off Limbs to Save the Corpse

Special Post from the Grave
I didn't see this being covered anywhere else, so I decided I should probably post it.

I'm still at school, so I must confess to not really being in the know. Despite my distance, I received an e-mail describing the new wave of mayhem at the Orlando Sentinel and it's much worse, much sooner then I would've ever predicted. I know the Orlando Sentinel is taking hard blows and the past year has been abysmal, but the developments below are basically a recipe for terminating the newspaper in its entirety.

From inside Sentinel walls:

Big meeting yesterday. There’ll be 36 positions eliminated from the newsroom alone. The Sentinel is now a ‘NEWS GATHERING ORGANIZATION’ with a newspaper arm. The paper part being the lesser entity. Everything we do from now on will be geared to the web site. In addition they plan to up the subscription rate????
As for the edit page, we will only be doing ONE EDITORIAL A DAY!

For Old Time's Sake

I just received some information about new developments at the Sentinel and I thought I would pass them along.

From: Hall, Charlotte H
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 10:25 AM
Subject: Florida Today Sharing
Importance: High

To All:
Today we begin a test of a content-sharing partnership with Florida Today. Routine news stories and advances of events posted on our Web sites can be picked up by the other paper for publication in the next print cycle. Stories and photos will be attributed to the originating paper, and bylines will be used. Exempted from the sharing arrangement are columns, investigative stories and major enterprise stories.
Florida Today content will not appear on OrlandoSentinel.com and vice versa, but the Web editors from the papers will pursue an aggregation strategy, including RSS feeds for some content.
During the test, the managing editors and team leaders will also explore the possibility of pooled coverage or team coverage of events on a case by case basis.
The test will run three months, and the arrangement could be made permanent or expanded at the end of that period. Mark Russell and Roger Simmons are the point people in our newsroom. If you have questions, you can direct them to Russ, Roger or me.
Charlotte