Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!

I had a really interesting Instant Message chat with a friend inside the hallowed walls of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin today.

Seems a long-time Honolulu Advertiser executive suddenly defected to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin to assume the role of president and publisher of "the other guys." And he took another of his highly-placed buddies with him!

The IM chat session (read more) includes the text of the email that Advertiser publisher Mike Fisch sent to his staff on learning of the defections.

The Star-Bulletin site has a very short piece in the Breaking News section. I'm sure tomorrow's paper will have a bit more. Enjoy!

ME: "Meet the new boss, same: as the old boss." -- The Who

ME: I heard about Dennis Francis leaving the Advertiser today.

SB: Did you see the email that was harvested from the 'Tiser about these guys leaving?

ME: No!!! Send it over!!!!

SB: -----

Per Mike Fisch
Regarding Executive Changes

Several high-level resignations have been received today which are effective immediately.

Dennis Francis, General Manager of the Advertister since 1998, tendered his immediate resignation to take the position of President of Oahu Publications and Publisher of the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

David Black aggressively recruited Dennis and offered him a package worth more than a million dollars to help them try to defeat us in the marketplace.

Dennis felt the money was worth making the change from the winning team to the losing team.

Dennis has left effective immediately to assume that role.

Glenn Zuells, our Classified Director will join Dennis at the Star Bulletin in a sales management role. He too will leave immediately.

Marge Inn Francis, our long-time: Credit Manager and wife of Dennis Francis has been put on paid leave until we can determine her status.

Obviously these were not planned changes. I will be making further organizational announcements regarding these changes soon.

Beginning today Bill Bogert, Mike Cusato, Richard Fuke, Roger Forness, and Miki Sugikawa will report directly to me.

As always, we will continue to provide our customers quality products and service, focusing on their needs and not the day to day actions of our competitors.

Sincerely,
Mike Fisch

-----

ME: Mahalo nui for the kokua, I thoroughly enjoyed that!

ME: OK, I guess I let you go back to work. Maybe that should get posted on Hawaii Stories? :)

ME: Hehehehe.

Comments

Hehehehe indeed, ZZ! Actually, the ever-enterprising Erika Engle posted a wonderfully cryptic teaser over at sister site HawaiiThreads early this afternoon. The e-mails had started flying. The Bulletin's Burl Burlingame posted the text of this same message on his website. Our Jon's TalkStink.com was soon on the case. And no doubt early tomorrow Ian Lind will chime in from Ka`a`awa.

Quite a coup, and quite illuminating. While Mike seems to believe that Black's deep pockets were the primary motivator, one has to expect there was a lot more involved considering that the Advertiser certainly represents a more financially sturdy outlet than the scrappy Star-Bulletin. As I mentioned at HawaiiThreads.com, sometimes it's more than just a job.

Now... what to do about these overlapping talkstory hubs?

No worry. I think the sites have overlapping audiences, plus they have their own separate audiences. Something for everybody!

Blaine

Dennis felt the money was worth making the change from the winning team to the losing team.

The point is that Hawaii loses if Honolulu becomes a one-newspaper town. Calling the SB the "losing team" begs the question - "losing against what?"

I'm glad David Black had enough vision to aggressively and strategically hire qualified people. Whatever financial commitment he made, it's probably a worthy investment to keep the heart and soul of journalism alive in this state.

I hope the fighting spirit exhibited by the Star-Bulletin continues to pay off over the long haul.

Well, when the head of the CIA resigns, this is small-kine stuff. :)

geez blaine, you got some good sources. but how the heck did the SB get an email that originated from the Tiser? There's spies everywhere I guess.

"Spies" is one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is, these are people for whom information is the primary currency. There are leaks in every industry, but journalists have got to have a pretty good trade. Besides, in Hawaii particularly, nothing moves faster than good gossip.

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