Bill Conroy, the former editor of the San Antonio Business Journal, writes about why he quit his job at the American City Business Journals paper after 20 years.
Conroy writes, “During that period, the newspaper was always profitable and I never had to fire a single person. Consequently, I had a kickass veteran reporting staff, most of them there at least 10 years — a rarity in the news business today. Ironically, then, I was the first person I ever fired, and it was due to two primary reasons.
“The first is as old as the newspaper industry itself, and baseball for that matter. When a coach of even a winning baseball team has a philosophical disagreement with a new general manager, over players or strategy, the coach almost invariably loses, and is out of a job. The same scenario holds true in the newspaper industry.
“I had a philosophical disagreement with a new publisher, who failed to appreciate the line of separation between editorial and advertising/sales. At one point, after a long discussion over why I would not allow my reporters to write advertorial copy had come to an end, the publisher said he planned to ‘continue pushing the line’ between editorial and advertising, and if it ever became a problem, he would just say someone other than the journalists wrote the ad copy.
“I knew then that my days were numbered. I could go out with my integrity, or I could trade it in for my salary. In the end, for me, at this point in my career, with some 30 years in the journalism business, I knew my salary was the only trade I could make and have any hope of continuing as a journalist. That was reason No. 1.”
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