Mr. Smith leaves Washington

Steve Smith, editor of the Spokane, Wash. Spokesman-Review, has resigned from the paper. According to this article at Knight Digital Media Center, the decision came in response to the current attitudes of media ownership.

“It is time to stop standing behind our salaries, our bonuses and our pensions and stand up and say what needs to be said”—that short-term thinking and cutbacks are “dooming our organizations to irrelevance and causing irreparable harm to our systems and society without consideration of the larger loss,” Smith said.

Many newsroom employees have expressed similar thoughts over the last few years, but it seems few owners are willing to take those concerns to heart. In the meantime, what we have is more of the same quick-dollar myopathy and lack of vision that's slashed core-business operations at a time when owners should be investing in their product and business.