Man in the Hat media

Big news in journalism this week. It was announced on November 14 media company Gannett and New Media Investment Group's proposed  merger was approved . In short, the company will continue to go by Gannett, despite being aquired by New Media for $1.13 billion, and is now the largest corporate journalism in America, with its flagship publication USA Today . Also of note, New Media is the parent company of Gatehouse Media, another news paper publisher. The Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism school and research organization, postulated some things of note to watch in the before the merger was approved. It is worth a quick read by clicking here , but in short, the move is bad for journalism in that organizations opinion. Today, I want to put aside the corporate talk, because from a business perspective, this merger makes sense and falls in line with what has become common place in American corporate business. Forget about fiscal responsibility, company liqui...

Football coaches are known for the sometimes quirky ways to help players keep perspective on a season. The usual is "there are three seasons each year, non-conference, conference and post (bowl) season." Quirky, but effective at getting the point across to take things in stride, and find the true priority of a year to help set goals. But I'd like to add a fourth part to this: Hiring/Firing season. Just like with Christmas carols on the radio, the season seems to start earlier every year. Florida State kicked things off earlier this month firing Willie Taggart and Arkansas joined November 10 when it announced it was parting ways with Chad Morris .  Both coaches were in the middle of their second seasons, and both had losing records. In the past, coaches had the security of their contractual buyouts as a shield to give them time to instill a program, recruit and develop some talent before an employment decision was made by administration. An...