The resignation of Randy Cope from his position as co-president and co-chief operating officer of GateHouse Media was finally addressed in today's Neosho Daily News. Cope, of course, was a longtime publisher of the Daily and his family, on the Cope and Bush sides, had been involved with the Daily for the past 55 years.
The Daily waited until the effective date of his resignation, which was today. The information became public one week ago when GateHouse Media filed the news of Cope's resignation with the Securities and Exchange Commission:
“Randy’s service to this newspaper was vital to its success,” (Daily Publisher Rick) Rogers said. “Even though the Cope and Bush families will no longer be directly involved in the newspaper, they will always have a place in our family. This newspaper would not be where it is today without the leadership provided by Howard Bush, Ken and Anne Cope, and Randy Cope. It is now our goal, as the current staff of the Neosho Daily News, to continue the tradition of publishing a strong daily newspaper with important local news content, with a value to our advertisers, and as a source of information to our readers.”
6 comments:
I'm sure Chip Watson dictated to Rick Rogers when the story would run, and the form it would take. And then the story had to be approved before it was published.
It is curious that the writer of the story made no effort to contact Randy Cope himself. The story is about Cope; why not give him the opportunity to explain his "resignation." Even if Cope refused to comment, that could have been noted in the story.
I'm sure Rick Rogers, I mean the "From Staff Reports" guy, wasn't allowed to contact Cope.
Well of course it was a very delicate situation and Rogers is obliged to play nice and not stir up any trouble. He needs to keep his job. Whether Cope was told he was no longer needed or he decided he didn't like his new role in Gatehouse's management structure and gave his two weeks on his own accord, neither party wants to make a big deal of this.
Cope has always avoided the spotlight and probably signed a departure contract promising to keep his trap shut in exchange for all that Gatehouse stock (for what it's worth).
And with the CNHI cronies in place, losing Cope is no big deal to Gatehouse. They especially don't want to make a big deal of it should Cope seek employment at another paper.
So what we get is a "story" with no byline, one sentence of news, a bit of history, and a BS quote to make it look like someone actually put some effort into telling us what was actually news two weeks ago.
long live newspaper journalism, and best of luck to Rick, Chip, Buzz, and anyone left who has actual journalistic instincts.
Gatehouse has always been rife with rumors that Cope and Scott Champion were locked in some sort of power struggle and rarely communicated.
It's so hypocritical of GateHouse that they demand that their reporters seek out information and ask the tough questions, except when the story's about them. Remember how GateHouse officials had "no comment" after they pulled the plug on Joplin Daily.com?
Hey previous poster, it's not hypocritical of Gatehouse to not ask the tough questions, it's typical. No one at Neosho or Carthage is asking any tough questions. The reporters are spread so thin that fluff pieces are all there is time for now.
Yes Neosho did some good projects last year, but that will be hard to maintain after pushing Buzz out the door and bringing in no new reporters to make up for the loss.
Look at the web sites and count the fluff pieces. Neosho's got a story about a four-way stop sign and a baby born in a Joplin hospital with no Neosho connection. And fluffy columns from all the reporters. Carthage's story about a new hospital has no photos of the new hospital, and their top story of the year is about a football game. It looks like they didn't even send a reporter to last week's city council meeting.
In-depth looks at political developments and lobbyist influences are long gone, with only Turner here (and occasionally some bigger papers) willing and able to do the work to dig up such information.
Speaking of Buzz, anyone else notice that he is listed as publisher on the Carthage Press' Web site? Last I heard, he was managing editor and general manager. When did this happen? Randy?
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