KHTS Fires Archuleta, Rock, ctd

Some reader comments I couldn't get to yesterday regarding the firing of political reporter Mark Archuleta and News Director Carol Rock:

Of course Goldman says the firings were a "business decision."  After Buck's henchmen waltz in and say "Buck will tell his friends to do no more business with you" what other decision could be reached?

Whatcha wanna bet Buck puts in a nice ad buy here?

I find the logic of this inescapable. What Goldman says could be true, and what Rock thinks may have happened could be true at the same time.

Another reader:

Did you notice that Perry Smith writes for KHTS now? He used to be the Signal's education reporter. How much of a budget crunch could there have been if KHTS fires two people one day and hires one the next? There are other unfamiliar names on KHTS' latest articles as well. 

Indeed, Perry Smith is listed in the byline on this story. And I've not seen "Connie Jones" listed in a byline before.

Another:

Question:  If the loss of Archuleta and Rock were based on economics and they were let go on Monday, than why didn't either one cover the forum last week, instead of Peeples?  You would have to assume that your "political" reporter should cover the only congressional debate?

They were pulled from covering McKeon on October 3rd. The only hint that Carl Goldman gave as to why was to say that KHTS wanted to "remain neutral" on the coverage of the McKeon race.

But who was claiming Archuleta/Rock were being unfair to the Congressman? Is that what the October 5 meeting with McKeon's staff was really about? That question hasn't been answered.

Another reader says we need to look at the ads for the answers:

Sad that Carol Rock and Mark Archuleta were fired by KHTS (Carl Goldman).  Both were fine reporters who strived for balanced reporting and I can say based on firsthand experience.  Unfortunately, I don't think the local politico's believe in or want balanced reporting or independent thinking.  The City of Santa Clarita pulled their advertising from KHTS two plus years ago after KHTS endorsed David Gauney for City Council.  I noted just this past week that the City is now advertising again on KHTS.  Could some sort of deal have been struck between the reinstatement of City advertising and the endorsement of McKeon and firing of these two fine reporters?  Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

For a friendly community such as ours, local politics sure seems to be a dirty business.

I miss them too. Rock and I didn't get along all the time, indeed she called me out a few times in comments for being inaccurate. But that's because she teaches journalism and was the closest thing we had in the SCV to a Dean of SCV Journalists, if you will. That's how long she's been around. And now we've lost her.

And then there was Archuleta, whose reporting struck me as fearless and muckraking, just what this town needs from time to time.

What strikes me about this affair, and numerous ones suspected at the Signal over the years, is how insecure our local politicians are. They're afraid of a bit of a bad reporting from a station that probably -on a good day- reaches a few thousand people at most? Or a newspaper that reaches 10,000 people a day at best? Or a blog with a few hundred dedicated readers?

This is the SCV! No one cares. Apathy is the word that describes it best. The vast majority of our neighbors only think of this place as one in which they rest their heads at night or one in which they raise their kids before moving on. Archuleta's reports probably only reached a fraction of the voting public, yet our politicians, with several notable exceptions, seem very insecure about any bad press.

A former Signal writer writes in, talking about the pressure they felt from Pater Familias McKeon  when they worked on Creekside:

From my experience, the whole town was afraid of the McKeons, and The Signal bowed to anyone who might affect its bottom line -- advertisers, business leaders, politicians, etc. It wasn't trying to serve its readership, but rather just kiss the right asses and play it safe. 

For example, I was told that we couldn't editorialize about prop. 8 after some big ruling in the court case because it was "too emotional" an issue -- but in reality, it was really that the paper didn't want to show its hand and say that it was against gay marriage, lest it ager someone.
EVERYONE who works at The Signal hates it. It pays shit, no one respects what you do (largely because of the way the management operates) and it's too dishonest.

Journalists get into the biz because they want to do something noble, not because they want blow political leaders and play a totally partisan role in the community.

I felt dirty every time I walked into the newsroom.  

My current job is at (deleted)...The workload is similar to The Signal, but I don't hate myself at the end of the day.

I think that McKeon just has his fingers in so much of that town that he could sway the business leaders to pull advertising and take the paper's knees out from under it. As you'll see, if you read The Signal every day, they only write about maybe 20 people over and over again, and all of them are friends to some degree. The incestuous nature of it all means that you have to play nice and kiss everyone's asses.

It's not too dissimilar to the mob -- don't cross the family, keep your mouth shut, do as you're told, and you'll be OK.

I've heard these same sentiments from the revolving door of journalists at the Signal for years. It's why I'm never too hard on the journalists themselves but rather condemn the Signal's owners in Georgia, who are intent on extracting every last dime of value out of our once-proud paper.



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