Oregon Media Insiders

Found this over at the incresingly indispensible GannettBlog:

If indeed Steve Silberman, executive editor in Palm Springs, is on Dickey's list for Louisville or Indianapolis, staffers beware.

Two things leap to mind.

The first, from a Howard Kurtz column in the Washington Post in 2000 (sorry, no link available):

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Hometown Journalism

When Jim Bartimo went to work as business editor of the Idaho Statesman in Boise, he was stunned to learn how the Gannett paper handled sensitive stories.

Bartimo helped edit a lengthy piece on Micron Technology, a major local employer, only to be told that the story had to be submitted to Micron executives for review before it could be published. Bartimo was so disappointed that he quit the $ 55,000-a-year job after only a month.

"It's like running a story on politicians past the statehouse," Bartimo says. He says the story, published last month, "is softer now than it was before."

An attorney for the paper, Wendell Van Lare, defended the practice in a letter to Bartimo's lawyer.

"The newspaper chose to have the story reviewed by Micron representatives for fact-checking purposes," he wrote. "In fact, an error had been made, which was pointed out by Micron, and which was corrected prior to publication." Van Lare called the practice "good journalism" and said that "the notion that the Statesman's actions could jeopardize the journalistic reputations and careers of those involved is laughable."

Statesman Managing Editor Steve Silberman, who asked for the Micron review, declined to comment.

Bartimo, who had other disputes with the paper, raised the possibility of a lawsuit to recover the balance of one year's salary. But Van Lare says Bartimo used the Micron story as as "excuse" to quit and that the Statesman's only strategy was "limited to making sure the door did not strike his posterior during his subitaneous egress."

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So, that's Silberman Item 1. Item 2: after he'd been in Palm Springs maybe a year or two, he announced to the staff he'd gotten the local film festival to pay for a daily section about the festival written by staffers at the paper. You heard that right: paid for by the film festival, written by Desert Sun staff. It took the deputy managing editor -- the wonderful Ben Holden, since departed -- explaining to Silberman the fallout from the Staples Center fiasco at the LAT for the idea to fade.

Also, more on Silberman in this GannettBlog thread:

http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/fridays-massacre-real-change-or-...

This guy sounds like a comer. A guy with a news background who will turn a paper into the Chamber of Commerce's Facebook page.