Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Death of a news wire

Scripps Howard News Service is out, DeCode DC (started by NPR reporter Andrea Seabrook) is in.
Scripps Howard News Service is out, DeCode DC (started by NPR reporter Andrea Seabrook) is in.

At the beginning of the last century, the most powerful man in San Diego was E.W. Scripps, a bearded newspaper king who ruled a big chunk of the nation’s journalism and print opinion from the isolated ranch he called Miramar. He and his older half-sister, Ellen Browning Scripps, who with their siblings made vast fortunes in the newspaper business, spread lots of money around the county, establishing what has become the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, among other local institutions. In addition, E.W. bought the San Diego Sun to battle the San Diego Union and Tribune and their owner John D. Spreckels with exposés and editorials ripping the sugar heir over his streetcar and water monopolies. More than a century later, the company E.W. founded is still around. Over the years it has closed down most of its newspapers and now runs an array of cable channels and television stations, including San Diego ABC affiliate KGTV. Scripps descendants in La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe continue to live off the considerable family fortune.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Now comes word that the company has shut down its once-proud Washington, D.C.–based Scripps Howard newswire and replaced it with something called DecodeDC, a recently acquired online operation that started life as a Kickstarter project. The Scripps bureau’s traditional wire business is being transferred to McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, according to a company statement. “Scripps will no longer offer syndication services and will close its wire service at the end of the year,” said a November 13 company news release. Of its successor, Scripps said, “Former National Public Radio reporter Andrea Seabrook founded DecodeDC as a podcast and a website.” Bureau chief Ellen Weiss is quoted as saying, “DecodeDC focuses on Washington’s dysfunction, corruption, and negligence of the issues that affect American citizens every day.” Seven staff positions are being eliminated and ten new ones created, including one for Seabrook, the release added. “They will produce DecodeDC content that will be featured as part of the local Scripps digital brands in 26 television and newspaper markets.”

The final DeCodeDC podcast under independent ownership, along with a brief written farewell by Seabrook, was posted online November 1. Reached this Monday by phone, Seabrook said that her first podcast under Scripps is running this week. As new hires come online, they will produce investigative reports for the news bureau, to be carried by McClatchy, as well as material tailored for individual Scripps-owned broadcast and newspaper outlets, she said. DeCodeDC’s digital efforts are expected to find their way onto the websites of the various links of the Scripps chain. A new national desk is also being set up, Seabrook added. Though Scripps bought KGTV from McGraw-Hill two years ago, the move has brought little apparent change to the San Diego TV station’s news coverage, widely believed to have inspired the Anchorman movie franchise and its principal character, a virtual dead ringer for onetime-KGTV newsman Harold Greene.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Now what can they do with Encinitas unstable cliffs?

Make the cliffs fall, put up more warnings, fine beachgoers?

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

San Diego Dim Sum Tour, Warwick’s Holiday Open House

Events November 24-November 27, 2024
Next Article

Could Supplemental Security Income house the homeless?

A board and care resident proposes a possible solution
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader