SocraticGadfly: Hypocrisy alert – Bob Decherd and Belo Corp

May 04, 2008

Hypocrisy alert – Bob Decherd and Belo Corp

Only eight of Dallas-Fort Worth’s 50 largest companies had both a revenue decline in 2007 from 2006 AND negative value to shareholders in 2007.

One of those was Belo Corp, parent of The Dallas Morning News.

The News has been slumping even by the standards of seven-day daily newspaper declines. (Interestingly, the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Orange County Register, two other openly conservative papers, have joined the Snooze at or near the bottom of worst-performing major dailies the last three or so years. The New York Post and Washington Times are perennial money losers.)

That did not phase the board of directors of Belo, apparently. Decherd, at $3 million, got the fifth-biggest bonus of those top-50 company CEOs. His total compensation for the year ranked 13th, at a shade over $10 million.

That $3 million bonus? What is that, about $60,000 each for the 50 or so editorial folks who have gotten the ax at the Snooze in the last three years or so?

Sorry I can’t find a link to the graphic box illustrating this that goes with the main story. I’d love to ask Pamela Yip, who wrote the main store and has seen dozens of friends and coworkers get axed over the last three years, how she felt about digging up that nugget.

If you’d like to ask her, here you go.

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