Dave Burgin: I'm back! Well, almost
Dave Burgin was on the verge of showing the newspaper industry how to save itself, then Knight-Ridder came in and pulled the rug out from under him in The Bay Area by launching a free paper, just like he was about to do for William Dean "Stinky" Singleton. Damn!
Still, the enfante terrible of the newspaper industry shares his dark vision of the ailing newspaper industry.
Don't believe him? YOU FOOL! GUTTERSNIPE!
...I'm the Nostradamus (pictured above) of the industry. I can see it, I can smell it. I don't see that energy. I don't see anything that connects the average guy in the street with a newspaper, and I damn well don’t see anybody under 40 reading papers."
That's vintage C. David Burgin.
Regular readers of this weblog might remember that Dave was an editor at The Houston Post, a former employer of mine. I wish he woulda had these brainstorms when The Post was still kicking. But that was a long time ago.
[gradethenews.com]
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4 comments:
Burgin's come outta his shoes again. He gives good quotes when that happens. I can see him now, pacing up and down, wondering why no one's called him to launch his Master Plan.
This guy Burgin is the dumbest guy in the newspaper business, and that's saying something. By my count this guy has helped put the following newspapers in the grave through his leadership and innovations:
Washington Daily News, Washington Star, Dallas Times Herald, San Francisco Examiner, and heaven only knows what else.
Yet people keep hiring this idiot...
I worked directly under Dave and let me just state without reservation that he is the smartest, most creative insightful SOB in the history of the news biz. Yes, he is a pain in the ass, coarse, opinionated, arrogant and insensitive, but he made me into a damned good writer in a short period of time.
My two favorite Dave quotes:
"If your mother says she loves you, check it out!"
"Get to the point dammit. Nobody wants to read your flowery bullshit. This is a newspaper, not Esquire magazine. Get to the point as quickly as you can. Now get back there and rewrite this from top to bottom."
Yep. I've heard the former plenty of times and can just hear him saying the latter. He does the best intentional and unintentional Bobby Knight bit around.
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