Charles Apple

An announcement this morning from Virginian-Pilot editor Denis Finley:

Staff,

We are merging the design and graphics departments into one presentation team.

We’re making this move for two reasons:

First, as we’ve done with other teams, we wanted to get away from small teams in favor of larger, more flexible ones.

Second, we wanted to position ourselves for the future. Having a combined team will allow us to leverage our artists’ and designers’ talents for print and online.

To that end, Miranda Mulligan will become our online artist/designer. She’ll work with the presentation team and editors around the room to create multimedia work that enhances our online report. Miranda will remain in the News Graphics department and will have dotted line responsibility to Jane [Elizabeth, a senior editor who was named Online Editor last week].

Paul Nelson will be in charge of the combined team. Charles Apple – who suggested this scenario more than a year ago – will become an artist on the team.

The change will take effect at the beginning of the year.

Questions? To me please.

Denis

To answer the first question you’ll have: Yes. This is a demotion for me.

To answer your second question: Yes, I did suggest this myself. In the summer of 2006, as a matter of fact.

At the time, I had just interviewed for a new job and I had another interview lined up. I wrote up a huge memo with recommendations on who the Pilot might hire to replace me and suggesting various other scenarios.

One was to simply not replace me, but to place the graphics operation — which isn’t nearly as large as it once was — under the design director.

Naturally, I never thought it would happen while I was still in the job!

But it was a viable suggestion at the time. And while it certainly sucks for me, I still feel like it’s not necessarily a bad idea for the Pilot. Especially given the vast amount of talent on the Pilot’s design team.

To answer your third question: No. I have no idea what I’ll do now.

When I came to the Pilot in 2003 as graphics editor, I expected to be here only two years.

I just completed my fourth year here. I’ve been shopping for my next opportunity for quite some time. Quite frankly, prospects have been mighty slim.

Maybe this is the time to get into teaching. I’ve been told I’m pretty good at it. I have two applications floating around universities at this very moment. I put a third into the FedEx bin less than an hour ago.

Maybe this is a good time to go back into my first love — sportswriting — or into another part of journalism. My experience with this blog this year has increased my enthusiasm for the power and immediacy of online news.

If you have any suggestions, please write or call. Believe me, I’m all ears.

Maybe I should just stay at the Pilot, despite my reduced salary and responsibilities. My managing editor made it clear yesterday that this change was purely structural in nature. It’s meant as no reflection on my job performance, past or present.

Make no mistake: That’s a good thing.

—

No matter how this shakes out, I have to be grateful for a number of things:

- Lots of folks have been laid off this year. I’ve not been laid off. Assuming I’m still here come Jan. 2, I’ll still have a paycheck and medical benefits.

- I’ve spent four years with an inside view of the workings of the most incredibly visual newspaper in the U.S. Bonus points: I got to observe the world’s best redesigner of newspapers redesign this one.

- I still have satisfying gigs running this blog, mentoring many, many students and professionals around the country and writing a column for the Society for News Design’s Design magazine.

- I now have something to take my mind off this incredibly bad respiratory infection with which I’ve been struggling for weeks.

So yeah, I’m at home today, feeling pretty crappy. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m one of the luckiest bastards in the entire newspaper world.

If you hear me whining too much, please remind me of that, willya?

Now, stop reading this blog and get back to work! You have lots of graphics and page designs to stockpile for next week’s holiday.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Virginian-Pilot, Industry woes, Charles Apple, Newspapers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.