Following are the latest internal memo from the Tribune Co. — bankruptcy-seeking and job-shedding owner of the Hartford Courant and New Haven Advocate — about the top dog brought in to oversee “content.”
Memo #1
Dear Colleagues,
“In times like these, you get a chance to show your strength.”
Jim Collins
Inc. April 2009/Author of Good to Great
For our business to succeed, we need to quickly and boldly reinvent who we are, what we do, and how we go about doing it. The time to start is now. A proactive strategy is unfolding to build a new model and new media company that is platform agnostic and focused on delivering more and better content.
To illustrate the direction our new media company is taking to reorganize and realign content platforms for the future, today I am announcing the appointment of Jeff Levine as senior vice president and director of content.
Over the past ten years, Jeff has played a leadership role in numerous audience development initiatives for Tribune Company and led outstanding teams in marketing and online. He has spent the past year and a half overseeing content for sun-sentinel.com and then orlandosentinel.com – leading to record setting page view and unique visitor growth. He’s worked closely with Earl Maucker and Charlotte Hall (the editors in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando) on their newsroom reorganization and digital integration. In addition, Jeff has worked together with executive vice president Bob Gremillion on cross media content projects and helped develop the southflorida.com website and TV show, and organizational integration that went along with that launch.
Jeff’s appointment is effective immediately. He will report directly to me, and oversee the integration of print, television and on-line news content as well as the strategy and direction of all three platforms. Print platform manager Cliff Teutsch and broadcast platform manager Bob “Rocky” Rockstroh will now report directly to the senior vice president and director of content.
Continued integration will give us the ability to serve more audiences than we could reach individually, giving communities access to more news, information and content than ever before in our great state.
Please help me welcome Jeff to Connecticut’s premier media company.
rich graziano
ceo, president & publisher hartford courant
senior vice president tribune broadcasting
general manager tic/txx
860 241‑6780 direct
860 241‑3863 fax
Memo #2
(From Jeff Levine himself)
Cliff Teutsch and Bobbie Roessner will be leaving the Hartford Courant, effective tomorrow. Cliff and Bobbie have been guiding forces here at The Courant for more than two decades. I have known both of them for several years and have always been impressed with their passion for quality journalism. Their record of accomplishments speaks for itself.
Cliff began his journalism career with The Courant in 1980 as a reporter in the Willimantic Bureau. Over the years, he has held a number of reporting and editor positions with the company, culminating with a promotion to editor and vice president in 2006. Under Cliff’s leadership, the news room broke the investigative series, “Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight,” asserting that the military was increasingly sending, keeping and redeploying mentally ill soldiers into combat in violation of its own policies and mandates from Congress. Because of the report, legislation was later passed to help address the flaws in the military’s mental health system.
Bobbie began her long and successful career with the company in 1978 as a reporter and has held several positions including associate editor, deputy managing editor and most recently, managing editor. In 2004, she completed a Knight Fellowship in Journalism at Stanford University. Last year, Bobbie oversaw the redesign of the newspaper giving it a new look, new sections and more than 40 new features, all with a stronger emphasis on Connecticut news.
Naedine Hazell has accepted the enormous responsibility of becoming interim editor. In the short time I have known Naedine, I have been very impressed with the contributions she has made and continues to make to the company. Many folks have told me of the excellent work she has done in her two months leading our digital efforts. The recent gains in online traffic bear that out. The Hartford Courant’s website, courant.com, continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. In March 2009, courant.com had 2.4 million unique users and over 23 million page impressions – a 20% increase over March 2008. Additionally, her depth of knowledge, versatility and strong sense of vision will allow us to maintain the extraordinary level of quality that Courant readers have come to expect from us, while we rapidly work to develop the newsroom of the future.
The past year has brought extraordinary change to our company, and the speed of transformation is likely to continue, even accelerate over the coming months. Recently, the focus has been on reducing costs in order to keep The Courant from falling into the red. We still will continue to effectively manage costs; however, the predominant changes over the coming months will focus on the positive – rebuilding our organization in order to meet the ever-morphing needs of our readers and audiences. We will work diligently to establish the best structure to channel our passions and work in order to expand our content over three platforms – print, online and television.
I know you will want to show your appreciation for the immeasurable contributions Cliff and Bobbie have made to the Hartford Courant. Please also join me in offering support to Naedine as she takes on her new role, working with all of us to preserve and develop the important place this institution plays in Connecticut life.
I realize you will have many questions and be looking for more information on these changes. Naedine and I will hold a short meeting on the newsroom floor at 5:15 p.m. this afternoon.