Talk:Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

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[edit] Copy edit

I've just done a copy edit. We twice make mention of awards the newspaper's reporters have won, and in the intro we say national awards. We should say which awards and find a citation. I'm also trying to find a front page so we have an image to use. I found a good pdf one of their 9/11 coverage but I don't know how to convert pdf to jpg. If I ever figure that out, I'll upload it. I also deleted some of the Teresa Heinz Kerry incident as it seemed to go on forever, and started discussing her rather than the incident itself. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:52, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the editing, it was overdue. You can always take a BMP screenshot of the PDF image; BMP is easy to convert to JPG. Cheers, -Willmcw 06:59, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)
Well, if I knew what any of that meant, I'd jump to it. ☺ SlimVirgin (talk) 07:34, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Awards

The citation seems to be from a very old article. Haven't they won something in the last three years? I ask this from a position of knowledge, and am somewhat bemused to see people thrashing about for three-year old web searches when much of that sort of information is typically offline. Lionel of Pittsburgh 13:49, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)Lionel of Pittsburgh

If you know where to find some information about this, it would be very helpful. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:55, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)
I did this the old fashioned way. I walked around the newsroom and wrote down all the plaques. Please note that we're missing a good portion of the newsroom walls because we're expanding the size of the operation. Unlike what's suggested in the main article, the newspaper is hiring quite a few reporters and we're bursting at the seams. It's also interesting to see that we are somehow part of the Greensburg edition. It's the other way around. The last person I know who tried to tackle these simple corrections was blocked, so I hesitate to make any changes without consensus (and she was a student intern, loosely affiliated with this newspaper).

I counted nine plaques/trophies for national awards that likely don't appear online. Mark Houser, for example, won three national awards for his work on how African-Americans are excluded from juries in Allegheny County (American Judicature Society, Black Media Federation, National Association of Black Journalists), plus several statewide awards (PA Bar Association, etc.). He also recently picked up an award from a European press consortium for reporting on race and other issues.

There's an SPJ award for the staff's reporting in Iraq during the recent war. There's also two national AP awards for having on of the Top 10 sports departments and an award from a national tennis federation for the best coverage in that sport. There's also a prestigious Oakes Award citation for environmental reporting from two years ago.

Besides Houser, there are international awards of various kinds for a former reporter (Bello) and current investigator Luis Fabregas. Both are for extensive projects in Latin America and medical issues here at home.

I found an Associated Press Managing Editors' (APME) for the top coverage of the Sept. 11 events in PA and several dozen plaques for other state awards, including photographers Keith Hodan and Steve Adams, sportswriter Joanne Klimovich Harrop and graphics designer Bob Newell.

Bello is there again for continuing coverage and, even though I don't want my name on this damned thing at all, awards for me for 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. I'm not going to itemize the lengthy number of trophies because that's unethical and I don't need a Wikipedia entry to feed my ego. It's big enough.

I counted 32 plaques for local awards from various press associations, but there are likely many more. The section upon which they used to hang is now drywall with plastic sheeting stretched across it.

So this is why it's sort of funny to see someone trying to represent the merits of a newspaper by adding one or two awards to a top graf in the encyclopedia entry. One that's listed by the administrator is so valued by the newspaper, it doesn't even grace the walls. But if the poster feels it's so impressive, it must be.

It's also quite odd to see representations of the newspaper by such sources as the competing newspaper and David Brock taken as gospel, even included in some sort of bibliography.

I nevertheless am glad I got involved in this project. At least my suggestions should be noted. You can do with them what you will.

Ironically, I tried to cut the Heinz section for the same reasons you did, Slim, and you got thanked for the weeding, and mine were reverted. Oh well.

Lionel of Pittsburgh 18:30, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hi Lionel, thanks for the information. Unfortunately we can't do things the old-fashioned way: we can only include the award information if it has been published elsewhere, so that we can verify it. It might help you to read our core policies: Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:Cite sources. The first two are the most important.
I'm not sure I see the point of adding awards unless they're prestigious, national ones.
If there are factual errors, or sections that are true but which you regard as unfair, would you mind listing them here? Bear in mind though that we have to write in a neutral way, not in a way that is beneficial to the newspaper, though your input is most welcome because you're in a position to know what the problem areas are. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:10, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)
The awards listed were the ones that I was able to find by searching on the paper's website. If they've received awards that they don't report on, well, those are unreported. As for sources, newspapers (and other media) are notorious for under-reporting about themselves. Other newspapers in the same city are natural sources. Whether there is a layoff, a new hiring program, etc, we can only include what has been reported in one place or another. Regarding the anonymous editor who was blocked, that blocking was due to uncollaborative behavior that was inappropriate in Wikiepdia, including behavior that would be inappropriate in a newsroom. Other users who employ the same computers and viewpoints as that editor are likely to be associated with him or her and viewed with less good faith than we typically extend. In general, it's best not to edit articles about topics that one is very close to, such as one's employer, because it is hard to be objective. Thanks for participating in the project. Cheers, -Willmcw 18:06, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Issues to address

Hello, Slim. These awards have been published elsewhere, although they likely are not online. Some very prestigious awards are notoriously offline, including some SPJ awards and APME. I went to check on some of my awards, and not all are listed online.

Most if not all of the big awards will be on the website of the award-giving bodies, which tend to keep lists of winners by year. However, if they genuinely aren't listed online anywhere, we still need a full citation to put in our References section e.g. "Headline" by Jane Doe, Washington Post, April 25, 2005 (i.e. a citation for the story published about the award having been won). SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

In a traditional research setting, circulars, print journals, etc., would enjoy some sort of bibliographic categorization. I'm not sure what Wikipedia's standards are. Certainly, however, POV would not be violated by simply listing the most prestigious awards earned. The problem is that the current awards in the second graf are hardly prestigious, and seem to have been affixed for that very reason.

I agree that we wouldn't be violating NPOV by mentioning the prestigious awards. However, the ones currently mentioned were the only ones that could be found easily, not because anyone wants to express a negative POV. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

It's not that many of the Trib's awards went unreported. They were reported in print, not bytes. This also is part of the problem with newspapers. They are built on pulp paper, not necessarily mainframes.

I like the notion that other newspapers are "natural" sources about their competitors. Yes, and from now on I'll trust what GM tells me about Ford automobiles. Ibid, David Brock, a man Slate calls a "serial liar," among other lovely adjectives chosen to describe him. slate.msn.com/id/2063759 Nice to see he's anchoring a bibliography, of sorts. This also begs the question of "Cite Sources." There is a ranking of sources for any journalistic enterprise. Some are considered of great veracity, others of poor repute.

We have no formal ranking system, except that academic, peer-reviewed journals are considered best, mainstream national newspapers the next best (WPost, London Times), and so on. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Having David Brock as a character witness begs someone's attention. I'm somewhat surprised the callow intern who was blocked didn't notice it, but she's all of 23 or thereabouts. Certainly, an unpaid observor of this and other newspapers couldn't possibly know as much about the subject as somebody in New Zealand.

Where is David Brock used as a source? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

I also liked this latest attempt: "Though nominally costing $.25, it is freely available in the city and its circulation is added to that of the other Tribune-Review papers."

The only published source of the paper's price was mentioned. It's 25 cents, as the paper reports online. The afternoon tabloid has a pricetag pre-printed on the front page. Whether merchants choose to charge for that is one thing, but they seem to pay for it upfront. Maybe they use it as a loss-leader. Who knows? I'm not sure where the "source" exists that proves it's "widely" available for free.

If so, I want my quarter back from Friday's visit to the 7-11.

Fair point. We'll get rid of that or source it. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I've chosen not to intervene in the actual blue pencil process. I'll let you hang yourselves. So far, the press wags on a local journalism gossip board are treating the compilation as something of a joke. Since my name, unfortunately, graces the damned thing, I have a certain natural interest in mentioning what else is accurate, or wrong, but I'm not going to intervene.

So, for what it's worth, let me tell you what is clearly incorrect about the ongoing encyclopedic entry:

1. Outdated and insignificant award citations in the second graf (see above);

See above. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

2. The "significant" circulation loss was unquantified and dated (summer of 2004). Considering the mergers and acquisitions of other newspapers, the published total of 221,000 paid subscribers in mid-2005 seems the show the journal is doing quite well. That might explain all the dry wall, new hires and generous travel opportunities. A cited source in another graf says as much.

We'll include the total number of paid subscribers if it's not there already, so long as the figures have been published somewhere. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

3. The price of Trib PM (see above);

Will fix. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

4. Staff reductions: Ed Harrell never "announced" staff reductions. He certainly mentioned consolidations and mergers. His exact words, in the article cited, were, "The changes most likely will involve a yet-to-be determined number of staff reductions." But four months out, no staff reductions, and a net gain of employees throughout the organization. "(M)ost likely" fortunately meant "not likely." There probably should be some way of noting this.

Well, he did say "most likely," and four months is not long enough to determine that it isn't going to happen. We can't decide to elaborate on what people have actually said. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

5. The Theresa Heinz Kerry episode: This version reads, "McKnickle later asked her what she meant by 'un-American traits.'" Actually, the source cited says he asked her what she meant bu "un-American activity."

Cheers, Lionel of Pittsburgh 22:35, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Will fix. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
Thank you, Lionel, this is very helpful and much appreciated. My replies are inserted into your text above. Best, SlimVirgin (talk) 22:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
Regarding User:Lionel of Pittsburgh's list and adding to what User:SlimVirgin has already written:
2. The most recent data that I can find is apparently for the Greensburg Tribune-Review only. The ABC lists it as having a Sunday circulation of 168,295, still as of September 30, 2004. [1]. It'd be nice if they released circulation number more frequently, but until they do that is the most recent official number.
4. Is there any source for an assertion of a net increase in total staff? Since the newsrooms, ciculation, and advertising departments of several papers were combined, it is certainly likely that the office they are now occupying are busy, and it's also likely that the old offices they occupied are deserted, neither of which tells us anything.
Regarding the other points, GM and Ford are not news media outlets. By extension the same logic would indicate that the Trib-Review's reporting on the Post-Gazette is untrustworthy. I hope that's not the case. And as for your intern, she volunteered that she works for the competition instead of for the Trib-Review.[2] I must say that having an unpaid intern in your newsroom who works for the competition is an unusual arrangement. Also, the anon, someimtes called "Tribfan", only had a temporary block. If she can find her way to stop threatening us with libel suits and to contribute in a collaborative manner then she is welcome to contribute to the project (though again, it'd be better if she worked on articles about topics that she is not so closely involved in). Cheers, -Willmcw 01:05, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

LOL!! I just realized that when I told Lionel I'd fix the price thing, I wrote "Will fix." Will, I hope you don't think I was issuing an instruction! SlimVirgin (talk) 02:10, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

An instruction? - I thought it was a command. Cheers, -Willmcw 04:35, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Response

"And as for your intern, she volunteered that she works for the competition instead of for the Trib-Review."

That's true, and not unusual. She has a small paycheck as a stringer for the local alternative weekly, I believe, and moonlights with us as part of a mentoring arrangement. For young people trying to break in, this is typical. It would be most unusual, however, if she worked for us and the main competition, The Post-Gazette. I can't imagine this would occur. She nevertheless works for one of our competitors.

"Is there any source for an assertion of a net increase in total staff? Since the newsrooms, ciculation, and advertising departments of several papers were combined, it is certainly likely that the office they are now occupying are busy, and it's also likely that the old offices they occupied are deserted, neither of which tells us anything."

In Pennsylvania, firms that initiate significant layoffs are listed in the Departmant of Labor & Industry's Statewide Jobs Report, which arrives in weekly and monthly installments. While it doesn't exist online, it is faxed to all municipalities and newspapers. I believe "major" would constitute 25 or more employees. To date, the Tribune-Review publishing company has not made the list. Ergo, no layoffs of more than 25 workers throughout the chain, after four months. For a concern that hires several hundred workers, this seems significant. As it turns out, the newspaper didn't lay off anyone, except for perhaps a manager or two, and retained everyone else, and indeed increased hiring of reporters nationwide.


"If she can find her way to stop threatening us with libel suits and to contribute in a collaborative manner then she is welcome to contribute to the project."

I had a great deal of fun re-reading what she wrote about libel. She's correct, in every regard, and I think astute to point it out. Kudos to her undergraduate ethics and law professors. To prove actual malice in libel law, one would need to show that a poster repeatedly, and recklessly, disregarded suggested corrections to printed falsehoods.

In this case, you had a young woman correctly pointing out that a slanderous lie was often repeated. When she sought to replace it with the truth, her edits were replaced, again, with the lie. When a lie like this goes uncorrected and, indeed, is re-printed, it is considered under Pennsylvania libel law to be a "malicious lie," and de facto proof of libel.

She also was correct to point out that she couldn't be a party to any lawsuit because she wasn't the offended plaintiff. How you can say she threatened you with libel escapes me. She could not possibly have sued you. She, however, was quite right that the actions of certain editors exposed themselves to legal action. The Internet, in this regard, is not so different from print. That she was later silenced through a "block" for attempting to remove the offending print from "Discussion" pages would also show ongoing proof of her original concern.

While I would suggest to her (are you reading Correy?) that she be more diplomatic in the future, especially in a collaborative effort, she was right about much in this.

As for David Brock, his Media Matters is listed as a bibliographic source on the Tribune-Review, down at the bottom of the webpage. Brock's serial lying might make him an expert only on his own perfidy and cant, hardly as a "source" of any reputable newspaper. But, as I said, I won't make any changes. I'll leave that up to others. Suffice it to say that a professional journalist visiting these pages would discount any offering from Brock.

As for the other "source," it's from the competition, and indeed from a former employee who has been hired by the competition. While that wouldn't normally wouldn't disqualify someone as an authority, it's telling that his piece listed here mostly involves unnamed sources. Ironically, the story he peddled didn't quite pan out, and this failing became something of humor amongst the town's media gossips.

I should like to say, however, that in all other regards he is an outstanding journalist and a credit to his profession. The Trib, unfortunately, is one of his hobby horses, and he doesn't ride this one as well as his others.

Sorry about that. I tried to leave a signature, and it timed out. Lionel of Pittsburgh 17:36, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, if we're determined to rehash this, let me just point out that someone truly concerned about nothing more than our legal liability would not replace the offending text with "edited to create more space" and would not also remove criticism of herself and attempts to reason with her. Gamaliel 17:29, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I wasn't part of any of this and so don't know the details. I've looked through the archive and although the posts are all unsigned (apart from regular editors' posts), they appear to have been written by the same person, who at one point says s/he's a reader, at another says s/he's working for a competitor newspaper, and who I believe is then found to have an IP address that links back to the newspaper, so someone was playing games. Sorry if I have that wrong: that's just based on a cursory glance. Moving on, I'd say it's important to drop any reference to legal threats because that hinders constructive cooperation. Lionel, I'd also like to point out that most WP editors edit under user names, so it isn't possible to tell how many professional journalists, or professional anything else, have visited this page. I hope we can all treat each other with mutual respect, and make sure this article is accurate, fair, and encyclopedic.
Lionel, did you make any progress on the issue of citations for the latest awards? In the meantime, I'm going to make the current awards invisible as you said they were outdated. We can restore them if we can't find anything else (but if other editors want to make them visible again, please feel free). SlimVirgin (talk) 18:48, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)


Not to belabor the issue, but the anon was deleting the original offending text without explaining why. When that is done by an anonymous editor it generally gets reverted without a second thought. When she finally said what the problem was we researched the issue and found that it was based on a misinterpretation of a poorly-worded news piece. Once that was established the material was re-written. To call it a "lie" is a stretch. On the other hand, to repeatedly assert that she was not connected to the Trib-Review while sitting at their computers seems like a conscious attempt to dissemble. While she may not have had standing to sue for libel, as she said, she certainly threatened to report us to those who do on many occasions even after we'd fixed the text, which is not very civil. Regarding the "external links" section, that is more of a "further reading" section than a list of bibliographical sources. The actual sources are footnoted throughout the article. I appreciate the amount of effort that Lionel has put into researching material for this article, tallying award placques and digging up old labor department reports. It's unfortunate that those are sources that are unverifiable by other Wikipedia editors. Energy and involvement like that are much appreciated. As User:SlimVirgin has said, we're here to write an article that is accurate, fair, and encyclopedic, and we appreciate any help in that direction. Cheers, -Willmcw 21:20, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Circ Numbers

I added the latest circulation numbers, as reported by ABC. I do NOT have the numbers for the entire fleet of newspapers. Now that the papers are consolidating into one mega-daily, this ABC circ number, and rate of decline, should change.

Lionel of Pittsburgh 15:01, 3 May 2005 (UTC)Lionel of Pittsburgh

[edit] Source for quote from Heinz Kerry

Heinz Kerry told the conference: "We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics."

What sources (apart from the PT-R) do we have for this alleged quote? Mr. Jones 19:44, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi Mr. Jones, you can hear her say it yourself in the video that's linked to. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:34, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
Click on the video here.] SlimVirgin (talk) 21:34, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

If you google the phrase, you will get a zillion hits from mainstream publications echoing the words, including USA Today, L.A. Times, etc. I like the TV bit because you can hear it for yourself.

I don't want to make any changes, but I might add that the additional language added to the THK flap doesn't really follow the best grammar, and it introduces a nebulous notion (some people think THK didn't mean to say what she really said...) that isn't really mentioned in any other contemporary write-up, not to mention the video footage.

Besides, Slim weeded that damned section down to a readable size.

But I'll stay out of this mess.

By the way, Slim, you might want to tweak the language at the top and bottom of the entry on the opinion page's political leaning. At the top, the entry reads that the newspaper is "generally" considered to have a "conservative" opinion page. Toward the bottom, in re Colin McNickle, it says it has a "very conservative" page.

One could argue about that -- the columnists typically defend gay marriage, abortion on demand and opposed America's invasion of Iraq -- and say it is more "libertarian" than "conservative," and that it nevertheless has more "liberal" opinions on Sundays, when the section expands than its competition. But that's for another time. Perhaps someone should clarify the "conservative" business in tone in the lede grafs and the bottom.

Cheers, Lionel of Pittsburgh 21:07, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I can't find where McNickle said his page was very conservative. If he did say it, we should have it in quotation marks, and if he didn't say it, we should delete it. Below is the section with the links: if it's there and I'm missing it, sorry for being dense. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:52, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
McNickle, who said he had received death threats as a result of the confrontation [3] — distinguished between the Tribune-Review's news content, which he said was apolitical, and his opinion page, which was very conservative:
Let's address the real issue here –- Mrs. Heinz-Kerry said something publicly for which any reporter worth his salt would seek clarification/expansion. What did she mean? We still don't know. Attempting to kill the questioner won't get us the answer. [4]

I don't see where he said that the paper's news content is apolitical either. We should probably remove both. -Willmcw 22:15, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

Done. If you don't like the way I rephrased the sentence, feel free to tweak. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:23, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
Beautiful. Thanks for doing that. -Willmcw 22:33, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
As part of a general cleanup I deleted the clumsy sentence about Heinz's defenders, which had been mis-sourced to a blog which didn't say anything like that. I took out a sentence about which local media outlets covered the speech (who cares?), and moved the video link down to the end. This way the speech and the exchange are presented in one continuous flow. Cheers, -Willmcw 22:43, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
That reads much better, Will, thanks. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:57, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

This entire "Heinz Kerry" incident comprises a full half of the article, and has become quite dated. It should probably be reduced to three or four sentences. Quatloo 13:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Care to do the work? -Will Beback 21:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'm willing to delete the section since I find the matter largely irrelevant, but it appears that others care about it, so I made do with the observation. Quatloo 22:41, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Would you feel comfortable writing a several sentence summary? It does not necessarily have to be deleted entirely, just trimmed to size proportionate to its importance. -Will Beback 23:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I think leaving this in is the print journalism equivalent of having a Cable TV news shouting match between two talking heads memorialized in an encyclopedia. A summary would be much like "In 2004, a shouting match occured." One can understand why it was created -- heat of the moment. I think maybe the thing to do is to make it its own article, and then it is subject to a more clear democratic process to decide whether to keep or remove it. Work clearly went into it. Maybe it can sit in a "Journalistic Catfights" Category with Adam Clymer's major league incident. Quatloo 02:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh no, not a whole article on the topic! I've chopped it down—take a look and tell me if you think that is NPOV. We might drop the heading too, and move it up somewhere. -Will Beback 04:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More changes

Since everyone is bustling about making changes to much of this, might I suggest an edit of the lede grafs?

Richard Scaife is not a financier. Although heir to the Mellon bank fortune, he is not a lender, nor does he control any corporation that does as much. He's a philanthropist, of course, and a publisher. But he's not a financier.

Looking back at the previous files, it appears that error was entered by a previously-mentioned "administrator." Perhaps the error could be traced to some Internet sites that say as much, but it isn't true.

Lionel of Pittsburgh 16:10, 6 May 2005 (UTC)Lionel of Pittsburgh

Done. I always wondered about that myself. BTW, what is the status of the Greensburg Tribune-Review vis a vis the Pittsburg Tribune-Review? After this mega-merger do they still have separate editions? -Willmcw 16:45, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

All the newspapers in the fleet are owned by Tribune-Review Publishing. The Greensburg edition is now designed and managed from the Pittsburgh D.L. Clark Building headquarters, under the editorial control of Frank Craig.

The Greensburg broadsheet, however, still very much reflects the local news in Westmoreland County and other eastern suburbs. Reporters and sub-editors still work in the large newsroom there, and they direct bureaus in nearby Fayette and Indiana counties.

Many of the copy editors, layout designers, etc., will now work in Pittsburgh rather than Westmoreland County. Although Correy mentioned that there were no known layoffs there, but I'm not sure. There may or may not have been, but I do not recall hearing of any. The chain, in fact, has been hiring more reporters to feed the local news monster.

To compare both the Greensburg (listed as "Tribune-Review" on its masthead) and the Pittsburgh ur-version of the two front pages, go to the bottom of www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/ and click on the pdf link.

Lionel of Pittsburgh 18:00, 6 May 2005 (UTC)Lionel of Pittsburgh

If the G T-R is the larger paper, and still has an independent identity, then maybe we should think about re-orienting the article to put it under that heading, with the P T-R as a subsection. Otherwise it's the tail wagging the dog. BTW, if you have time, we could really use an article on the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. Cheers, -Willmcw 18:08, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

The circulations of the two newspapers are roughly the same, although the Pittsburgh office has long supplied coverage the Greensburg edition can't do on its own, such as federal courts, pro sports, etc. Circulation, ad sales, design, all of that are now run out of the Pittsburgh office. From now on, ABC reports for circulation will only ential one entity, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which will exert ultimate control over the Greensburg branch.

Greensburg is now a branch, or a bureau, not a separate operation.

As a competitor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I would not ethically feel comfortable writing about their operations in an encyclopedic format. Lionel of Pittsburgh 19:18, 6 May 2005 (UTC)Lionel of Pittsburgh

Lionel, as Wikipedia editors (which is what you are when you're here), we're supposed to learn how to "write for the enemy." See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#A consequence: writing for the enemy policy. So this would be particularly good practice for you.  ;-) SlimVirgin (talk) 19:19, May 6, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] August comments

At the risk of group disapproval, might I suggest that this article finally be changed to reflect that there have been no reported layoffs since a rival newspaper, quoting an anonymous source, predicted as much seven months ago?

It becomes difficult to prove a negative, but in this case the dearth of any pieces from any news organization (other than a highly erroneous report from a shrinking competitor many months ago) might be sufficient cause to edit it out?

Another suggestion would be to change the lede. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review was founded in 1992 (rather than the more generally described "1990s") during a strike at the two previously dominant dailies. Please see www.pnpa.com/press/2003/Jan%202003/publisher_creates.htm for more details of that period. Lionel of Pittsburgh

Also, this is grammatically incorrect: "The combined fleet of dailies project a Sunday circulation of 221,000 readers." "(O)f dailies" is a prepositional phrase. The subject noun would be "fleet," which requires an "s" after "project." So it should read, "The combined fleet of dailies projects a Sunday circulation of 221,000 readers." Lionel of Pittsburgh

It really shouldn't say "projects" at all. It should say what the actual circulation is. Do you know those figures? In the meantime I've changed it to "claims". I also added the purchase date of the G-TR and the founding date of the P-TR. Regarding the merger of operations, it did occur, and the president did state that layoffs would result. If you have source for further inforamtion then we can add that. But we shouldn't go "take back" what was said. Thanks for the input. Cheers, -Willmcw 20:08, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

If what was originally said, even in a quoted form, turns out to be inaccurate, then it should be corrected. There have been no reports, from any published source, that layoffs of any sort happened. I suggest that a seven month statute of limitations be imposed on this. The way it is phrased currently suggests that "redundancies" transpired when, in fact, they did not.

As for "claims," that's pretty much the same as "projects." Fair enough. We have to wait for the next ABC circulation report to determine the exact combined circulation of the dailies. Lionel of Pittsburgh

That's a standard which I don't understand. By analogy, if a U.S. presidential candidate asserts that he has a secret plan for ending the war in Iraq, and then 7 months into his administration no plan is forthcoming, would historians/journalists simply remove that assertion from their books and articles? Well, I suppose that is one way of handling the issue. A better way, in this case, might be to say that there have been no further reports of layoffs. We don't know that there haven't been further layoffs, only that we haven't seen any reports to that effect. Regarding circulation, it'd be better to state what the last, actual circulation figures were at the most recent report. But we've been over that before so let's not belabor it. Cheers, -Willmcw 18:19, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it's a big nutty to suggest that an encyclopedic portrayal of a journalistic enterprise follow the standards common to newspapers or encyclopedias, but one is dealing with Wikipedia here. Leave it the way it is. The article already has been featured in a forum about the vagaries of local journalism, and was found wanting, even by the competition. I certainly would have felt more comfortable had Slim Virgin tackled these edits, but I can't pick and choose the keepers of Wikipedia's august gates. Lionel of Pittsburgh

It'd be very odd, too, to suggest that newspapers adhere to encyclopedic standards. Two different media. What's the link to the forum you mention? Thanks, -Willmcw 19:06, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

I'll point to another obvious problem in the article. This graf --

On August 6, 2004, the Poynter journalism site posted a comment titled "Omitting the Inconveniently Telling Detail" about the omission of the connection to Scaife in most of the coverage she had seen, which made McNickle look like an ordinary reporter instead of "a journalist from a paper with a long and ugly history with Heinz Kerry and her family."[26]

Who is the "she?" I would imagine it's Geneva Overholser. She's a former columnist of Poynter's.

Also, the litmus I used was a test of veracity for "newspapers or encyclopedias." I'm not sure if one is being deliberately obtuse by reminding someone who works in both media of their natures. I'll leave that for others to decide. Lionel of Pittsburgh

Thanks for catching that. Fixed. I'm not sure what standards you are talking about at all. Which standard calls for asserting that you have nothing to do with a newspaper when sitting in that newspaper's building and using their computers to write that assertion? Which standard calls for making threats of libel suits long after a correciton has been made? (Your intern followed both "standards".) Which standard calls for deleting the predictions of a CEO just because there have been no subsequent reports indicating their predictions have come true, as you've suggested that we do? I'd be curious to see these standards to which you refer. Got a source? ;) Thanks, -Willmcw 20:22, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
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