So Circuit City is going out of business. Sad to say, but these days shutting down a  567-store chain isn’t as big news as it once was. Nontheless, thousands more people will lose their jobs.

But in Circuit City’s case, do you know who I really feel bad for? The good clerks the company execs got rid of back in 2007. The ones who knew something about what they were selling. It was possible to go into a Circuit City store, ask some question about a consumer electronics item and get an answer. 

But management decided those knowledgeable clerks had to go. They cost too much. The young non-commissioned clerks at Best Buy and Wal-Mart cost their employers less money.

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In these last few weeks, as Circuit City desperately tried to work its way through Chapter 11, it found no takers for a sale. There was nothing unique about their stores, except that as a chain it was smaller than its competitors.

And now analysts are looking back at the decision in 2007 as the beginning of the end for the company. It turns out consumers went to Circuit City for their expertise. That was what differentiated them from the competition.

Even as Tucson’s two Circuit City stores have now started their liquidation sales, I’m told the discounts on the good stuff is 10 percent at best. Supposedly the discounts will increase as the stores get closer to their final closing dates in late March.

In the meantime, though, I can’t help but think in these tough economic times it can’t always be about being the cheapest. There has to be a place for value too. I wonder if Circuit City execs had realized that, might they still have a future?

Didn’t see that coming 

So he we are on the platform at the commuter station looking down the track one way when, all of a sudden — blam! — the train comes from the opposite direction.

I know we don’t do any commuting by rail around here but I’ve had that type of dream from time-to-time. And it’s sort of how I felt when hearing of Gannett’s decision to shut down the Tucson Citizen March 21, if a buyer can’t be found by then.

For as much as people wondered how the Citizen could continue with an average daily circulation of less than 20,000, in the bigger scheme of things Gannett is the nation’s largest publisher of daily newspapers and I figured that when the day came that Tucson would be a one-daily town, Gannett would be the company owning that newspaper. I didn’t necessarily relish that though, mind you.

Beyond that, Lee Enterprises, owner of the Arizona Daily Star, is barely managing to keep itself out of bankruptcy court, even thought the Star is a better newspaper.

Once the Citizen is gone, Lee Enterprises and Gannett will continue to jointly own Tucson Newspapers, but publish only the Star. Someday one of the two companies might buy out the other but right now the one selling wouldn’t get enough money and the one doing the buying doesn’t have enough money.

 E-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237.