After working under former Tribune CEO Randy Michaels and right-hand man Kevin (“Pig Virus”) Metheny, “I’ve come to hate the phrase ‘change is good,’” says WGN radio newsman Steve Bertrand.

Steve Bertrand

Change for the better is great but change just for change sake, without forward direction, is demoralizing.

At one point I was told to stop pronouncing the “t” in President Obama. It sounded too newsy. So for more than a year I referred to the President of the United States as “Presdeh-Obama.” I’ve pretty much kept my feelings to myself until now but am comfortable saying this knowing we are headed toward brighter days [now that Michaels & Co. are gone].

In addition to doing to news at Chicago’s WGN, Bertrand runs Steve Bertrand on Books on Facebook, which has author interviews and conversations about books.

* “Who cares about Notre Dame?” says Marquette alum Bertrand
* WGN newsman’s double life: Bertrand on Books
* Bertrand conducted one of Jeff Zaslow’s last interviews

Quinnipiac University journalism professor Rich Hanley participated in a secret “beta test” of Patch to determine whether one full-time journalist could provide all the content necessary to make a hyperlocal website about the community viable. The answer he gave was no, which Patch didn’t want to hear. “Hanley said that their test in Hamden, CT found the town to be too diverse, too complicated, too time-consuming for one person to handle,” writes Matt DeRienzo.

* Patch ignored advice about one-journalist-per-town model

The Washington Post’s Robert McCartney calls the Gridiron Club spring dinner “the most exclusive and silliest event in Washington journalism” and warns the people behind it that “all the archaic stuff on which you’ve prided yourselves for so many years — the white-tie dress code, the privacy — is just looking, well, archaic.”

What to fix? The first call is to drop the requirement that the men wear white tie and tails. That’s a stricter requirement than for White House state dinners. It used to be quaint. Now it’s just annoying and expensive.

* Wise up, Gridiron Club, or lose your cachet
* Rick Perry to tell jokes at tomorrow’s Gridiron Club dinner
* 2011: Gridiron Club won’t let C-SPAN cameras roll at its dinner