Rocking Deck at Daily News
MORE Off the Record
Martin Dunn, the editor-in-chief of the New York Daily News, says he’s baffled that even though the newspaper business is in turmoil, his colleagues are willing to accept the status quo.
Journalists believe they are the “greatest advocates of change,” he said by phone on September 3, but at “the moment there is a modicum of change, it’s like the bloody roof falls in.”
The roof of the Daily News remains intact. But, according to several News staffers, if it’s not the roof, it’s the floorboards. The staff is complaining about attrition and strife in the features department, major staff defections, and the firings of metro editor Dean Chang and national editor Mark Mooney.
And then there’s the tabloid war: The one-year anniversary of the New York Post’s blood-curdling cry of circulation victory is next month.
“I think the Daily News is having a personality crisis,” Mr. Mooney told The Observer. “They got surpassed in circulation by the Post and it happened on Martin Dunn’s watch. … They still claim, and correctly claim, that they are the largest newspaper in New York City. But the Post now has a bigger circulation than them.” Mr. Mooney, who was at the News for 14 years, said it has some “fabulous reporters and writers,” but it still suffers from “constant turmoil at the top of the paper.”
Plus, he said, it has identity crises: It covers topics favored by owner Mortimer Zuckerman—presidential politics and the Middle East—then returns quickly to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, the home territory of its rival.
“When you have two tabloid newspapers, one whose circulation is going up and one who’s going down,” Dean Chang said, “it’s not surprising that the editor of the News may want to emulate its competitor.
“The News’ biggest fault,” he added, “was not embracing what it has been and always should be—a paper for the working class.”
Both Mr. Mooney and Mr. Chang told The Observer that they had been given no advance warning that their jobs were on the line. Mr. Chang, who had been at the News for 17 years, said he “served at the whim and pleasure of the editor” and did not have a contract. “If Martin wanted to shake things up, that’s his call,” Mr. Chang added. “It wouldn’t be the first time the editor at the News made a mistake in judgment, and it won’t be the last.”
But Mr. Chang said he was “amazed” at not being “given a chance to stay on in some other capacity.”
“Every now and then, you need to change the dynamics of newsrooms and features departments,” Mr. Dunn said. “You need to bring in a new sense of energy and enthusiasm.”
On the other side of the newsroom, the dynamic has changed greatly since December 2005, when Orla Healy returned to the News as the managing editor for features. Since then, nearly 20 staffers, according to sources, have departed—both involuntarily and voluntarily. Next Page >
Turnover can be good if it improves the paper. But at the News it hasn't done any good. The paper is boring and lifeless and gets beat left and right by the Post. They were beat on the Alex Rodriguez girlfriend story and every day you see other bone-headed judgements, even on the fluffiest of news. A few weeks ago Brad Pitt and his family were in NYC shopping and seen buying hot dogs and pretzels from a street vendor. The Post got some really fun shots of them and slapped them on the front page. It was the right call for a fun item. What did the News do? They ran one measely photo way in the back of the paper. Really dumb and a classic example of how they can't even figure out how to entertain their readers. And here is the reason: The masthead is filled with all the people who basically held B-level jobs at the paper five years ago. B people can't provide an A paper.
Turnover can be good if it improves the paper. But at the News it hasn't done any good. The paper is boring and lifeless and gets beat left and right by the Post. They were beat on the Alex Rodriguez girlfriend story and every day you see other bone-headed judgements, even on the fluffiest of news. A few weeks ago Brad Pitt and his family were in NYC shopping and seen buying hot dogs and pretzels from a street vendor. The Post got some really fun shots of them and slapped them on the front page. It was the right call for a fun item. What did the News do? They ran one measely photo way in the back of the paper. Really dumb and a classic example of how they can't even figure out how to entertain their readers. And here is the reason: The masthead is filled with all the people who basically held B-level jobs at the paper five years ago. B people can't provide an A paper.
I once worked at the Daily News and knew Marty Dunn and Dean Chang. Dunn is a truly smart guy. He may not have a lot of polish, or education (he's left school when he was 15 or something), but he has great instincts about the news. He brings more to the Daily News as an institution than most people -- inside or outside the paper -- realize. While he is criticzed for carrying out Mort's whim du jour, one can only imagine what the paper would be if Marty was unable to talk Mort out of many of his enthusiasms.
It's a shame Dunn was, it seems, a total jerk to Michael Calderone. He is the equal of any newspaper editor in New York; Mr. Keller very much included. To the extent Dunn made his case, it wasn't very logical. Change for the sake of change seems a strange motto for an institution that has been as rocked by change as the News.
It is puzzling in the extreme that Dunn would ditch Dean Chang. He is smart, hardworking, insightful, and generous to his colleagues. Simply put, Chang is a class act. I was struggling on a story once and Chang went out of his way to help. The story later won an award -- an accolade that properly should have gone to Chang. He possesses two qualities in short supply in any tabloid newsroom: he is soft-spoken and not prone to bluster; and he leads by example -- not fiat. It is a shame Dunn jettisoned such a prodigious talent. It defies logic.
Unlike other Newsies sent packing, Chang will no doubt have his choice of jobs. His next employer will be most fortunate to have him.
Change would be good if it were for the better. Orla Healy has decimated the features department and the only positive change she has to show is that salary expeditures are down. The section is virtually unpickupable and contains lots of talk about style without demonstrating any of its own. Bianculi is a loss on a par with Chang -- he was smart and factual in an unassuming way -- everything that made the News fun AND respectable. Now the whole features well is exclusively 20 and 30-something women talking about food and clothes. A rational paper would have a broader idea of what's worth discussing.
And Chang is right about the mistake of not recognizing that the path to success is writing toward the working class base of the News, which is now primarily Caribbean, Latin and Asian, rather than pandering to the Australian in the room. The ultra-local coverage has been an economic bright spot as well as a good use of the borough bureaus and to a rational owner would show the way forward. That would be a change the whole newsroom could embrace.
when the news was at its height (i was there) sunday circ. was 2.4 million. that's when it was a real tabloid. guess what? the best writers and editors all had decades of experience at the paper. then mike o'neill came along and it's been dreck ever since
Dunn is the worst kind of leader, the kind who never wants to be disagreed with. Chang and Mooney bravely fought off his worst ideas and they paid for it. The newsroom is now run by second rate yesmen, and the news (less and less in a paper choking on celebrity chaff) is covered by interns. Dunn says he's bringing energy and enthusiasm to the paper with his shakeup. What a joke. He's brought precisely the opposite and the ongoing brain drain has been devastating.
Does Mort think the paper looks better today than it did six months ago? Does anyone?
I have known Dunn for years and worked with him for many more...bully is hardly a word to describe him. Driven is more like it. The place did need change and I don't think he's changed enough of the old guys who cash their paychecks without ever breaking sweat. Dean Chang didn't cast a shadow, had an arrogance way beyond his talent and was constantly sniping at anything that wasn't his idea. Don't know where the 'nice guy" stuff comes from. And Mooney was a complete non-entity - you wouldn't know if he was there or not. Hasn't the News won two Pulitzers on Dunn's watch and didn't he win Newspaper of the Year under Murdoch in the UK? He may not write it but he commits to doing it. His biggest problem is that he is totally hamstrung by the lack of resources around him - no color, god awful production, brain-dead executives and lousy management who take years to make any decisions. I'd hate trying to bring life and energy to a product that looks like it's being printed in the 1920s. Despite that, it does look better.
Dunn at least has some tabloid instincts as opposed to the three-martini a day predecessors. He knows a story and is giving the Post a run for its money. What'll happen if he goes is anyone's guess? He is the only editor who has ever been able to handle Zuckerman and the only one who actually knows how to get up for the fight every day. He actually know and cares more about New York than most of the people who were born and live here. He's the only one who gets out of the office and sees what's going on. I agree - he's totally screwed by the less-than-average people around him. What's wrong with change?
There are only a handful of people at the News who would write the kind of positive comments about Martin Dunn that newspaperman3 and newshounder. They were all brought in by Martin. I've been here longer than all of them and I've seen this same song and dance by Martin before.
Although the New York Daily News has lost its best editors and reporters in the last few years, it still is a better product than the New York Post can ever hope to be.
The New York Post is only good for gossip. The NY Post's breaking news and features have no credibility as its reporters and editors are not very good.
Sadly, the News, since Dunn, has quickly found itself staffed with smug, mediocre editors and an ever-growing staff of former interns turned smug, mediocre reporters.
In other words, if the current trend continues, the News will equal The Post in the worst way: it will become an inferior product. But that's the price of cheapness.
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