Ex-editor speaks frankly about the state of newspapers
Former St. Louis Post Dispatch editor Ellen Soeteber recently emailed alt-weekly Riverfront Times and said she wanted to talk. (She left the paper in 2005, saying at the time that owner Lee Enterprises wouldn’t provide adequate resources.) “We didn’t have to think twice about taking her up on the offer,” writes Tom Finkel.
Ellen Soeteber (Credit: Candace West)
Soeteber didn’t hold back and gave the St. Louis alt-weekly an excellent Q-and-A. Some highlights:
* “I was optimistic at first [when Lee Enterprises bought the Post-Dispatch]. Many of us were glad we hadn’t been acquired by Gannett, although in retrospect that might have been better. Gannett has tough rules, but you know what they are. Also, Lee made a lot of promises earlier on, but these quickly began to look shaky. It became clear that my ideas were not compatible with Lee’s.”
* “I don’t know what the [Lee Enterprises-owned] Post-Dispatch will become over the long term, given its ownership problems and the continuing overemphasis on short-term returns versus long-term investment. This emphasis was not new to Lee, but it has intensified.”
* “I am worried overall about the future of metro newspapers. They are like the big department stores that used to be one of any newspaper’s cash cows: Both businesses were big something-for-everyone, one-size-fits-all operations. A lot of people don’t want or need that anymore.”
* “I think that the handful of national newspapers — like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal — will survive as solid journalism entities for a long time to come, in whatever formats come along. Small-town news media will, too, where no one else offers the information they can provide.”
* It’s the traditional metro newspapers such as the Post-Dispatch, the Miami Herald and so on that worry me going forward. I hope I’m wrong.”
* “[Departing Post-Dispatch editor Arnie Robbins] and I have made some folks unhappy over the years because of wrenching changes we either wanted to make or had to make.”
* Riverfront Times checks in with a former Post-Dispatch editor
* 2005: Soeteber resigns, says Lee won’t provide adequate resources (St. Louis Journalism Review)
* 2005: Soeteber talks to CJR about her “copy boy” days, leaving P-D (CJR)
* Arnie Robbins succeeds Ellen Soeteber as Post-Dispatch editor (Lee release)
