Inkless Wells

Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW

Tweeting the firing of Ed Greenspon

by Paul Wells on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 8:35am - 14 Comments

Since it “doesn’t matter” which platform readers use to get their information, let’s reimaginationate yesterday’s already-historic Crawley memo as something a bit more… oh, I don’t know…jiggy. Original:

Reimagination-inspired teamwork during the last four years has reinforced the value of a more collaborative way of managing our business.  By drawing on the collective strengths of the team, we are all better able as individuals to contribute to the success of The Globe and Mail.  With that objective in mind, I have reviewed the composition of the Executive Team, and identified priority areas for improvement.

New skills and different styles of leadership are needed to take The Globe and Mail to levels of achievement which meet the ambitions of our shareholders, to cement our standing as the best in Canada at creating high-quality content for consumption on whatever platform is most desirable for our readers, users and advertisers.

We are building on a position of strength not enjoyed by many of our competitors. The executive changes outlined below are intended to ensure that The Globe and Mail is in the prime spot to take advantage of the market opportunities that will arise when the recession eases.

To deliver the required results, I am adding one extra position to the senior team and changing responsibilities and reporting lines in three other parts of the business.

Ed Greenspon, who has been our Editor-in-Chief for almost seven years, is stepping down and is succeeded by John Stackhouse, the Editor of Report on Business since 2004.

Improved, Web 2.0 version:

Teamwork ftw!! ShakingUp Exec Team. $4shareholders=changes. Bye Eddie! lolz Stack=newBoss

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  • JP

    heh heh heh

    (9 characters FTW)

  • Kaplan

    Still?

  • Anon

    Gee, Paul, you seem to be enjoying this Greenspon firing. Schadenfreude?

    • Paul Wells

      I’d have been delighted for Ed to run the Globe indefinitely. I’m thrilled if Stackhouse can do a good job. I worry that the boss of all of them is a semi-literate late adaptor with no perceptible interest in journalism, and that both the new and former editor seem a bit too eager to serve up whatever claptrap the boss asks for. Given the Globe’s influence, I think that’s a problem.

      • CAPS

        “the new and former editor seem a bit too eager to serve up whatever claptrap the boss asks for”

        But I thought they were neither supposed to submit to nor advise abitrary measures from the Chief Magistrate. Poor Junius.

        • http://www.macleans.ca/feschuk Scott Feschuk

          but this could be it, wells.

          this could be our moment – the moment when, as part of The Exciting Culture of Change that is implemented by any new editor (in addition to the firings they had to agree to do in order to get the job in the first place), stackhouse could very well declare a moratorium on all those “One Liberal Said” and “Senior Overweight Former Liberal Insiders With Male Pattern Baldness Declared” stories.

          will he do it?

          • Paul Wells

            Nah. In Twitter, it will look like this:

            1Lib(v. senr) sez Iggy sux lolz

  • Kaplan

    I don’t know – the last newspaper overlord who was highly intelligent and took a keen interest in the day-to-day affairs of his journalists was, like, all wicked awesome and everything, but I’d respectfully submit that his empire didn’t fare so well. Whereas Crawley’s been doing alright. Comparatively.

  • Mike G

    I don’t know enough about the editorial direction of the G&M to comment intelligently, so I’d like to just take this moment to say “lolz”.

  • ega

    Why not Brian Gable for EIC?

    • Orson Bean

      I nominate Lawrence Martin as EIC — as a synergy-creating & cost-cutting “rationalization” measure, Martin could merge the Globe & Mail with the Liberal Party of Canada website, thus eliminating duplication and overlap.

      • ega

        Yes but since a picture is worth a thousand words, and the illustrators have much lower IT costs,
        think of the cost savings with Brian Gable?

  • JVSCant

    tl;dr

  • http://www.grants-loans.org Lanie

    Whoever will be next, should be thinking of the welfare of many instead of just his. thismight be helpful for some. Thanks.

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