Audrey Cooper, the Chronicle EIC is leaving. Here's the BS press release.And here's my behind-the-scenes NON-SPIN to you:
Cooper is leaving because she saw the handwriting on the wall.
Although the Chronicle has enjoyed a relative good dose of journalism, it has suffered amidst the dying print journalism brand and its digital platform hasn't translated into a successful business venture. The Chronicle is losing millions of dollars every week. It's not alone but Cooper didn't bring anything new to the table and was probably going to be given walking papers any day now.
The Coronavirus pandemic didn't help matters but it also inadvertently bought time for Cooper who knew her days as Editor-in-Chief were waning. Newsroom morale was already bad and getting worse. Cooper's status as the head of the paper was rumored to be a goner any day soon and now, the moment has arrived.
To be fair to Cooper, the Coronavirus only stalled what was the inevitable --despite her eager attempts to embolden the paper, the Chronicle was never going to dart ahead; the print edition is barely registered and SGGate, the web site, is a breezy read and gets eyeballs, but it has never garnered black ink since its existence.
No one reads newspapers any more.
ReplyDeleteSFGate.com
ReplyDeleteWhere we celebrate the lives and accomplishments of wealthy white people.
The kind that say they support minorities but have none as friends.
I stopped the paper because delivery was unreliable.
ReplyDeleteAt Sacramento Bee, Paul Kitagaki, photographer, and Sam Stanton, reporter, were mugged and injured last night in Sac during coverage. PK's camera gear was stolen and he lost half of his photos. Both are OK and are continuing to work. This needs to stop!
ReplyDeleteI started subscribing during the toilet paper shortage. The shortage has eased up somewhat so I canceled.
ReplyDeleteIs she going for a job with the Giants?
ReplyDeleteDespite those brainwashed non-believers championing that they still get the printed copy of a newspaper, those days are DEAD. The newspaper world has changed FOREVER. The Chronicle is a shell of what it was. Audrey Cooper only cared about her precious Giants and food. If the Chronicle wants to be a beacon in a sea of darkness, it needs local ownership or someone who really cares about non-biased, responsible local journalism. Not some national entity like Hearst.
ReplyDeleteThe news of this press release is Comical just like the paper it's used now to line a bird cage or a pet to urinate on. Good riddance!
ReplyDeleteThe Chronicle became useless to me after my parakeet died.
ReplyDeleteLet's see where things go from here with the Chronicle. From my view, Cooper has done a solid job of balancing financial realities of the industry with needs and interests of Bay Area. I still have my Chronicle delivered to my door every day. I realize this will not go on that much longer, but under Cooper's leadership she made sure this still happened for those willing to pay for it.
ReplyDeleteHey, this is the same Audrey Cooper who said Rich isn't a journalist. Rich is still here and Audrey is leaving the Chronicle and the Bay Area.
ReplyDeleteI read the Washington Post (online, I confess). Why? Because of their columnists.
ReplyDeleteThe Chronicle used to have great columnists. That was the main reason to linger over it. They were adults, and they actually knew something.
All things must pass.
Don't be surprised next year at this time or sooner, there is no Chronicle. Nobody buys and very few read online.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I only subscribe to the Sunday rag for a few months at a time.
DeleteIt’s revealing that her resignation announcement doesn't list any significant achievements in her five years as executive editor.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing the writer could suggest is the homeless project, which was incredibly boring and and didn't move the needle on the problem. I don't know how you can take a subject like homelessness and make it boring, but she did that. The homeless series was forgotten as soon as the ink dried.
Her legacy? No Pulitzers, no big-time politicians brought down by Chronicle exclusives, no changes in the community that happened because of Chronicle reporting.
She was a big nothing, thrown into a job where she was over her head. She couldn’t write and she couldn’t report, which explains her lack of news judgment. Her big job every day was picking p1 stories and she consistently failed in that task.
For example, in yesterday's edition she felt that a C- or D-List celebrity, Jamie Foxx, deserved a sizable portion of the front page because of his BLM advocacy. Who cares? Everybody in Hollywood is supporting BLM. How is that front page news?
When big stories happened under her nose, she buried them to protect the city's power brokers. Who was that woman with Jeff Adachi before he overdosed on cocaine? How did he get the cocaine? She didn't care. Instead, she condemned the real journalist who broke the cocaine story. And she couldn’t care less when a police SWAT team broke down the door to that journalist's house and office with a battering ram.
She also didn't think Larry Baer's abusive confrontation wife was important, relegating the story to one column on the bottom of p1.
Hopefully, Hearst will pick a veteran reporter with fire in his or her belly, somebody who will shake things up with solid investigative reporting. Somebody who won’t kowtow to the powers that be. Maybe somebody who will green light the Jeff Adachi investigation.