As I noted last night, WKRN in Nashville has apparently decided to let the best political blogger in Tennessee go for budgetary reasons. Now, the state’s bloggers are responding.
It was very sad to hear of layoff of A.C. Kleinheider, the writer of VolunteerVoters, today by Nashville TV station WKRN.
The media business is a tough business these days. Hard decisions are made. I don’t envy the ones making them. It’s sad to see VolunteerVoters go after a year, 11 months and 13 days..
The mainstream media corner office morons never cease to amaze me. Their business is changing, but some of them are too stupid to figure out how to change with it. Selling internet ads isn’t rocket science. Kos gets $15K per week for his premium ad spot, and he doesn’t even have a sales staff.
Kleinheider built a valuable brand, and WKRN flushed it down the toilet. The WKRN idiots in suits must have been out getting high and playing video games the day they covered branding in Marketing 101. And it’s not the first time this has happened over there. The sad irony is, Hobbs still has a job. Sometimes there is no justice.
Anyway, so long ACK. Nice work, and we hope to see you around the blogosphere.
A.C. Kleinheider has been relieved of his duties as Nashville TV station WKRN’s sole remaining full-time blogger. His last post cites budget cuts as the reason.
While I can certainly see this from the business angle, I am not sure that the station’s current management (different, it must be stated, than that which hired him initially) ever fully grasped what they had.
I know I will struggle to adjust to having such a huge hole in my must-read list. Partly because most of the rest of us in the Tennessee blogosphere have day jobs (plus), Volunteer Voters demonstrated an inimitable focus on political stories — surface and background — that I, for one, have depended upon for my updates. But the time factor was only part of it. The skill involved in presenting so many voices, including (until they shut it down) one’s own, is what made the product downright addictive.
Adam, you are a scholar and gentleman. I do not worry for you. Your future holds many more scoops and successes. Hold your head high, sir. You are irreplaceable.
This is a serious blow to the local blogosphere, as his site was a major hub for political news and coverage in Tennessee. If there is a silver lining to be found, it is that Kleinheider’s voice has been unleashed so that he will be able to blog at his old site, Kleinheider.net, in his former paleo-conservative fashion that was silenced when the former GM left and the new one took over. I look forward to vehemently disagreeing with the views of this very undisagreable man.
Many of the comments below Kleinheider’s farewell post are from bloggers as well, including:
Newscoma
Lynnster
Ginger Snaps
Truman Bean
Silence Isn’t Golden
Busy Mom
And Rep. Stacey Campfield, who has been teased around the blogosphere for his spelling skills, and who seems to take the ribbing in good humor, by saying
“Life goes on. Good to hear you will still be blogging. I feel I need to send you off with something extra special. How bout…. Your sighte was mightty trustegious for this “Smacked a**” to visit.”
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” first, eliminate any and all dissent, one voice and only one will
eliminate confusion of our agenda.” THE BILDERBERG GROUP. 1954