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Topic: Miscellaneous items
Date/Time: 9/11/2008 3:20:28 PM
Title: Business Press editor "ejected from the building"
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
Two e-mails from Bob Dixon, who until Wednesday was editor of The Business Press, a Press-Enterprise publication

From: "Dixon, Bob"
To: [Numerous pe.com employees]
Subject: Sept. 15 issue of The Business Presss
Date: Sep 10, 2008 3:05 PM

All:

I am deeply saddened by the wholesale destruction of what was once the editorial credibility of The Business Press with the publication in the September 15 issue of a thinly-veiled advertising product labeled "Business Profiles." Please understand that I have no problem with the concept or the effort to generate revenue; it is the manner in which it was done, and the complete disregard for any semblance of editorial integrity, to which I object.

It is perhaps telling that the publishers chose to ignore all of the methods traditionally employed to separate advertising from editorial content. I offered my views on maintaining this distinction when the concept was first proposed several months ago.

1. The section uses a title, "profiles," that has been used for years to denote a regular feature in the editorial pages, including on the cover each week;
2. The only printed indication anywhere that the section contains advertising and not editorial content is in the text-sized page folio;
3. The light blue overhead banner created specifically to denote editorial content during the paper's last redesign is employed at the top of pages in the ad section containing advertising content; and
4. The same typeface used for editorial content has also been used for advertorial content, unlike the sans-serif face that has been one of the principal distinguishing factors employed in the paper's prior advertising or "banner" pages.

For those reasons, I have chosen to remove my name from the masthead of the Sept. 15 issue of The Business Press.

This is just the latest -- although one of the more egregious -- examples of the current administration's complete lack of regard for its editorial products. It is also one of the reasons that I have chosen to accept a buyout.

Robert F. Dixon

...............................

From: Robert Dixon
To: [Several e-mail addresses]
Subject: Bob's gone...
Date: Sep 10, 2008 6:08 PM

I know tongues are wagging, so here's the scoop: [Business Press publisher] Frank [Escobedo] had me ejected from the building because of my earlier email. Starting my voluntary severance early.

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