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Anonymous (not verified) says:
I get a little tired of people bashing the Carroll-Marimow era at The Sun. I'm not dismissing the complaints of sun vets pre-Carroll and Marimow. I suspect a good number of them were mistreated.
Conquest by outsiders in any business is hard, but these were not bad ones to have. John Carroll and Bill Marimow were not Gannett or Tribune Co. pawns looking to shrink newshole and make numbers.
The truth is that the Sun, both before and during caroll-marimow, was a much better newspaper than almost all others around the country.
An irony here is that Simon's vision of journalism's role in society is probably not so different from Carroll's and Marimow's. I believe Marimow won a Pulitzer in Philly on stories related to the MOVE bombing and on police dogs attacking civilians.
My suspicion is if you removed the bylines, Simon would think they were amazing stories. These were not distant, irrelevant prize-chasing endeavors, but stories that might have made for good plot lines on Homicide or The Wire. (Probably two of the best 10 shows ever on TV)
More broadly Carroll and Marimow have had to deal with the consequences of the publicly traded, profit-growth driven press, which has played more of a role in print's decline that prize-chasing self-promotion. Carroll resigned from the LA Times and Marimow was fired from the Sun, largely because they wouldn't follow orders to cut reporters and editors.
I also think the prize-chasing and favoritism charges are overdone.
At The Sun and elsewhere, Carroll gained a reputation as somewhat of a journalistic visionary. He investigated allegations of slavery in the sudan by having reporters actually purchase a slave. One of the reporters was a long time Sun veteran, Gil Lewthwaite, there long before Carroll and Marimow. Carroll personally edited a story revealing deadly practices in shipbreaking that was taking place in Baltimore. One of the reporters was a Sun vet, Will Englund, the other a former Philly guy, Gary Cohn. Scott Shane and Tom Bowman, two pre-Carroll/Marimow vets, did superb work on the National Security Agency, an agency based in Baltimore area.
Is anyone going to take issue with the relevance of throwing resources at lead paint in dilapidated Baltimore City houses or at mismanagement of juvenile justice by a gubernatorial candidate?
A prior posting properly praises work by Diana Sugg and Lisa Pollak. But it doesn't give the newspaper credit for allowing those stories to be guided by superb editors -- Jan Winburn, a hire by Carroll: and Rebecca Corbett, a long time Sun editor.
Some of the stories cited above were locally based. Some were not. Some may have been written to chase prizes.
But they all represent audacious, bold attempts to tell compelling stories. I don't know about you, but that's what I want my newspaper doing...
I get a little tired of people bashing the Carroll-Marimow era at The Sun. I'm not dismissing the complaints of sun vets pre-Carroll and Marimow. I suspect a good number of them were mistreated.
Conquest by outsiders in any business is hard, but these were not bad ones to have. John Carroll and Bill Marimow were not Gannett or Tribune Co. pawns looking to shrink newshole and make numbers.
The truth is that the Sun, both before and during caroll-marimow, was a much better newspaper than almost all others around the country.
An irony here is that Simon's vision of journalism's role in society is probably not so different from Carroll's and Marimow's. I believe Marimow won a Pulitzer in Philly on stories related to the MOVE bombing and on police dogs attacking civilians.
My suspicion is if you removed the bylines, Simon would think they were amazing stories. These were not distant, irrelevant prize-chasing endeavors, but stories that might have made for good plot lines on Homicide or The Wire. (Probably two of the best 10 shows ever on TV)
More broadly Carroll and Marimow have had to deal with the consequences of the publicly traded, profit-growth driven press, which has played more of a role in print's decline that prize-chasing self-promotion. Carroll resigned from the LA Times and Marimow was fired from the Sun, largely because they wouldn't follow orders to cut reporters and editors.
I also think the prize-chasing and favoritism charges are overdone.
At The Sun and elsewhere, Carroll gained a reputation as somewhat of a journalistic visionary. He investigated allegations of slavery in the sudan by having reporters actually purchase a slave. One of the reporters was a long time Sun veteran, Gil Lewthwaite, there long before Carroll and Marimow. Carroll personally edited a story revealing deadly practices in shipbreaking that was taking place in Baltimore. One of the reporters was a Sun vet, Will Englund, the other a former Philly guy, Gary Cohn. Scott Shane and Tom Bowman, two pre-Carroll/Marimow vets, did superb work on the National Security Agency, an agency based in Baltimore area.
Is anyone going to take issue with the relevance of throwing resources at lead paint in dilapidated Baltimore City houses or at mismanagement of juvenile justice by a gubernatorial candidate?
A prior posting properly praises work by Diana Sugg and Lisa Pollak. But it doesn't give the newspaper credit for allowing those stories to be guided by superb editors -- Jan Winburn, a hire by Carroll: and Rebecca Corbett, a long time Sun editor.
Some of the stories cited above were locally based. Some were not. Some may have been written to chase prizes.
But they all represent audacious, bold attempts to tell compelling stories. I don't know about you, but that's what I want my newspaper doing...