The rumors were true: Mark Zieman has written his last always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life layoff memo as publisher of The Kansas City Star. Zieman is getting raptured up the corporate ladder to become the vice president of operations for McClatchy Co. in Sacramento, California. He'll oversee 13 papers, including the Star.
Zieman told the Star: "I love The Star and Kansas City and would have been happy serving both forever. But the future of newspapers in our democracy is now being written and reimagined in communities across our country. ... To help lead that effort, yet still oversee my hometown paper, is the perfect opportunity for me.
Credit media watcher John Landsberg for breaking
the story.
As Pitch managing editor David Martin pointed out earlier this month, Zieman is following the path
of Art Brisbane, the former Star editor and
publisher who became an executive at Knight Ridder. McClatchy bought the
Star and other newspapers from Knight Ridder in 2006.
In a Pitch exclusive, here's footage of Zieman and wife (and former Star columnist), Rhonda Chriss
Lokeman, leaving town.
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Arthur Brisbane and Joe McGuff and Bob Woodworth at least gave the appearance of being amiable people, but Mark Zieman oozed arrogance and condescension and creepiness at every turn. For all of his hot-shot swagger and lip service to the noble mission of journalism, he ends up with a record of being a weaselly middle manager who, after presiding over the decimation of the newspaper he supposedly loves, scampers away to save himself, bereft of integrity and accomplishments.
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