John Dunphy laid off at Orange County Register

Veteran journalist John Dunphy has been laid off by the Orange County Register, he reports in a post today on Facebook:

“It's official...I got laid off today. I have had a fulltime daily newspaper job since I graduated in 1969 at some top big city metros in Kansas City, Akron, Detroit, Seattle and Orange County. It was a good run.”

John and wife Rebecca Allen live in Lakewood, California.  He has had a distinguished newspaper career including probably a decade of reporting on the May, 1970 shootings at Kent State for which the Beacon Journal won a Pulitzer prize.

His layoff was not unexpeced.  Reports on this blog since 2007 have reported on layoffs and bankruptcy at the newspaper.


John's email address is

jmdunphy@gmail.com

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NY Times introduces photo tumbler

Here’s a reason to hate working on a laptop with a small screen: The New York Times has a Tumblr called “The Lively Morgue,” through which you can scroll big, beautiful pages from the paper’s archives.

The first post, from sometime on Monday, shows Times employees in aprons sorting photos into baskets labeled “Bombay,” “Melbourne,” “Copenhagen,” and so forth. It’s undated. In an introductory essay, David W. Dunlap writes “let’s agree that these photographs give lie to the idea that The New York Times is not a picture newspaper.”

Contemplating the size of the Times’ collection, Dunlap writes: “If we posted 10 new archival pictures every weekday on Tumblr, just from our print collection, we wouldn’t have the whole thing online until the year 3935.”

Some pictures are for sale; the paper’s Lens blog will write about others. On that blog, Kerri MacDonald writes that Darcy Eveleigh has been choosing images for The Lively Morgue for months.

Tbis is neat: Clicking the photos turns them over so you can see the notations on the back.

From the blog of retired news editor Tom Moore

good place to start a newspaper....

by tom moore

I've kept quiet over the years--retired for 20 years--but the latest move by the Beacon Journal (where I spent 30 years) is one of the worst journalism decision that I've seen over the years of downsizing and filling space with long stories that should rate no more than 8 to 10 inches.
    That gets you more space for more stories and hopefully, something that might attract a reader/
    But the lack of  a local byline and photos from the Chardon shootings--a national story right in our backyard--has got the be the worst decision by the folks in charge.
   When you see from wire services, that means all the stuff you're reading was culled from wire services and any other sources that doesn't use man power. And to use photos from other sources when the BJ has some great photographers still trying to do a good job.
     And, let's add, reporters  (true fewer) who do the best they can but can't do anything without the right direction.
  I"ve stopped saying I worked at the BJ. Why?
   People are always saying what's happened to the paper. It's not worth the paper it's printed on. There's nothing to read (except for the paid obits)....
   I know its all about money these days, but you've got to give readers something to read...especially when the biggest  story of  the year happens in our backyard.
   Too bad there isn't somebody who wants to run a "READ" newspaper here.

Reflections on the weather chart for March

Please excuse the personal reflections by blogger Harry Liggett on the weather chart in today's Beacon Journal:

Does anyone use the monthly weather chart published by the Beacon Journal? The chart which popped out of my newspaper at breakfast Iisted information on my birthday on March 3 but also brought some sadness. The chart says the record low temperature for that date was minus 2 in 1043. Whoops a tyoo. Guess it was 1943 and not 1043. Record high was 74 in 1974. Last year ...the extremes were high of 36 and low of 15. So I guess the temperature on my birthday wil be somewhere between minus 2 and 74 degrees. The sun will rise at 6:57 and set at 6:19 which means my day will be 11 hours and 22 minues long. I remember how difficult the chart was to set in type when we first started using computers. I usually helped the rewrite guy, a dear friend, who had the unwanted task of putting it together. And I sadly remembered my dear friend.
R.I.P Don Bandy.

Associated Press changes logo

The Associated Press announced a new logo this morning, an update of the one that’s perched elegantly atop stylebooks for 30 years. The letters are now black, the “A” no longer leans against the “P” in an avuncular fashion, and both letters are on the same baseline. A red bar under the letters recalls the previous color scheme. The “stencil look” of the previous logo is preserved, but the “bridges” (the gaps in a stencil) are more pronounced.

The new logo (shown right) was produced by the New York design firm Objective Subject. Its predecessor (shown left) was designed internally three decades ago.

AP logos over the years

Gannett builds firewalls on all papers but USA Today

The vogue for digital paywalls sweeping the news business has made it all the way to the top: Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, is planning to switch over all of its 80 community newspapers to a paid model by the end of the year, it announced during an investor day held in Manhattan Wednesday. “We will begin to restrict some access to non-subscribers,” said Bob Dickey, president of community publishing. The model is similar to the metered system adopted by The New York Times a year ago, in which online readers are able to view a limited number of pages for free each month. That quota will be between five and 15 articles, depending on the paper, said Dickey. Six Gannett papers already have a digital pay regimen in place. There is one Gannett title, however, that will remain free, at least for the foreseeable future: USA Today. Gannett CEO explained that decision as a matter of priorities, noting that USA Today is in the midst of overhauling its website to create a user experience more similar to that of an iPad app. 

Read the full article in Forbes 

Faye Stoyer, wife of retired asst. ME Lloyd Stoyer

Faye Ann Stoyer, her struggle is over and she is at peace. Faye Ann Stoyer of Jackson Township passed away peacefully Saturday at the Akron General Hospital Center in Fairlawn of kidney failure, at the age of 82.

Faye Ann was born Jan. 6, 1930, the daughter of Victor and Mary Good of Struthers, Ohio. She graduated from nearby Poland (Ohio) Seminary High School in 1948 and went to work as a service representative for the Ohio Bell Telephone Co. in Youngstown. She was married to Lloyd Stoyer in Poland on Oct. 7, 1951, a few days before he was sent to Japan for two years duty with the Army's Counter Intelligence Corps during the Korean War. Faye Ann lived with her parents until his return in 1953 when the Stoyers moved to Wadsworth and later Bath in the Akron area. Next they lived in Howland near Warren and in Lapeer, Mich., where Faye Ann worked as a transcriber of medical records at the Lapeer County Home. The Stoyers returned to Ohio in 1980, moving to Jackson Township and Faye Ann went to work for Diebold Inc. in Canton. When she retired in 1995 she was a supervisor in the firm's Customer Response Center. In her retirement she was active in number of groups including the Diebold Retirees Luncheon Club; IMPs a women's social club; and a number of bridge groups. She was also a member of Zion United Church of Christ in North Canton.

Besides her husband, Lloyd; she leaves a daughter, Judy Stoecklin, and her companion Stuart McDonald; a son, Jerry, and his wife, Beth; two grandchildren, Spencer and Seth; two step-grandchildren, John and Kristan Grubbs; a step-great-granddaughter, Aryanna Merriweather, and numerous nieces and nephews. Faye Ann's sister, Margaret Black, also survives. Three brothers, Bill Are, Bob Simington and Judson Good are deceased.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 17, at Zion United Church of Christ, 315 S. Main St., North Canton, with Rev Eli Klingensmith and Rev. Gary Smith officiating. Calling hours will also be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Reed Funeral Home North Canton Chapel, 801 Pittsburg Ave. Burial will be in Lake Park Cemetery, Youngstown. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Zion United Church of Christ. Reed Funeral Home, 330-477-6721

Published in Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, February 12,

Another BJ video: Party for MARK DAWIDZIAK

Roger Mezger has called another video to our attantion.  It is one last glimpse of life at the Beacon Journal in the 1990s. This video is from July 2, 1999, when the features department put on a little skit in the JSK room as movie critic Mark Dawidziak was leaving the paper to take a job at the Plain Dealer. The performers are David Giffels, Elaine Guregian, Rich Heldenfels, Chuck Klosterman, Joan Rice and Glenn Gamboa. Ann Sheldon Mezger is the emcee.

Washington Post from more than 1,000 to 640

The Washington Post newsroom, once with more than 1,000 employees, now stands at less than 640 people, depleted by buyouts and staff defections.

A New York Times piece quotes  execute rditor Marcu Brauchi:

“When I was managing editor of The Washington Post, everything we did was better than anyone in the business,” he said. “We had the best weather, the best comics, the best news report, the fullest news report. Today, there’s a competitor who does every element of what we do, and many of them do it better. We’ve lost our edge in some very profound and fundamental ways.”

Read the full story

Fun facts about the New York Times

New York Times social media editor Lexi Mainland is digging up fun facts about the paper’s history as far back as the 19th century, like when the Times first got electricity, a phone, or a woman reporter.

In 1869, Maria Morgan was 1st woman reporter to have desk in newsroom. She covered cattle news, horse shows, and racing.

In 1878, NYT published an experimental Spanish-language section in 3 editions of paper.

Electricity arrived at NYT HQ on Sept. 4, 1882. 52 of Edison's bulbs lit he building for the 1st time that night.

NYT got its first phone number in 1886. The number was John 470.

Adolph S. Ochs, acquired controlling ownership of NYT for $75,000 in 1896, nearly all of it borrowed. Circulation: 9,000.

In January 1901 NYT had 2 telephones. The reporters had typewriters, but most still wrote their articles in longhand.
                   
Computers arrived in the newsroom in Dec. 1974.

Giles named to GlobalPost position

BOSTON, MA –  Bob Giles, longtime newspaper editor and former curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, has joined the international news site GlobalPost as Commentary Editor. Giles will recruit contributors from around the world to bring authoritative analysis to a new GlobalPost section called Commentary. Giles has been a member of GlobalPost’s Editorial Advisory Board for the past three years.

Giles retired last summer after 11 years as curator of the Nieman Foundation, one of the pre-eminent fellowship programs for journalists in the world. He worked for nearly 40 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, most recently as editor and publisher of The Detroit News, which he joined in 1986 as executive editor. 

From 1977-1986, Giles was executive editor and then editor at the Democrat & Chronicle and Times-Union, in Rochester, N.Y. His newspaper career began in 1958 at the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, where he held several reporting and editing positions before becoming managing editor and then executive editor.

Terrific trio turnout

While only three showed up today for the monthly BJ retirees lunch at Papa Joe's restaurant on Akron/Peninsula Road, the lowest turnout since no one came during the January 2011 snowstorm, we found the conversation so interesting that we chatted for two hours.

Retired printers Dick Gresock and Gene McClellan and newsroom retiree John Olesky made it. McClellan has the longest attendance streak, at 13 and growing.

Since Dick and John joined Ken Wright in the same BJ room for years to coordinate electronics technology between Composing and the Newsroom, a big chunk of the chatter involved the BJ changes from linotypes to punched tape to APS-4 to computer terminals for every reporter and editor. And how the ITU negotiators tried not to show their glee as they accepted a John Knight-inspired offer for lifetime jobs in exchange for cooperation with computer expansion.

Since Dick and John have made the rounds of national parks in the West and Southwest, another chunk of conversation was devoted to the pleasures of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Bryce and other natural national treasures.

Gene wasn't left out of the conversation, though, particularly when the trio discussed their early days in the business and how they wound up at the Beacon Journal. Gene's Mom and Mr. Church, who hired him at the BJ, went to, ironically, the same church which led Gene from his railroad employment to the BJ. Dick bowled in the Printcraft League, while he worked in a job shop, where the BJ guy who hired him also bowled and persuaded Dick to switch to the BJ to put together ads. John wound up at the Beacon Journal because publisher Ben Maidenburg liked to help a difficult cause, such as being fired by the Dayton Daily News for union activities.

"When I walked through those double doors" to Composing, Gene said, "and heard all that noise, I knew this was where I wanted to be." And he was, for decades.

If you want to swell the crowd, and find something worth listening to and laughing about for two hours, show up at Papa Joe's -- where Akron/Peninsula meets Portage Trail Extension -- at 1 p.m. the second Wednesday of the month.

Not many have recently, but those who do seem to enjoy themselves a lot. Or maybe they're just glad to get out of the house.

Pruitt: Cutting home delivery could hurt

By Rick Edmonds
Poynter Online

During Tuesday’s earnings call, McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt was asked if the company has considered discontinuing home delivery some days of the week. His answer:

We are loathe to do that. Though your assumption is not wrong — some days, especially early in the week, have little advertising. … But we are very cautious. When someone is in the habit of reading the paper every day, we don’t want them to go somewhere else on Monday. … I can’t prove it, but I think (if home delivery was unavailable some days of the week), we might lose some of the circulation that helps us on Sundays.”

Sunday circulation at the Detroit Free Press, which began home deluivery only three days a week three yeas ago, fell from 605,000 in 2008 to 494,000 in 2010. (Because of auditing rule changes, more recent figures are not comparable.)

But as Pruitt’s comment suggests, there is no way to tell how much of that decline had to do with lesser frequency and how much was due to a price increase and other factors.

Asked if he foresaw an “inflection point” in the company’s digital transformation, Pruitt replied:

I don’t think there will be a moment that is a turning point… As we have gone through it, it has been a slog… We have responded with some (cost-cutting) initiatives we would rather not make. But when you pause and look back you can see a lot of progress.

Industry figures for circulation have not been announced because of changing auditing rules. However, McClatchy did report its totals for 2011. Its 30 papers were down 4.3 percent daily for the year, but Sunday was up 0.2 percent.

McClatchy, like the other publicly-traded newspaper companies, no longer reports monthly results. However Pruitt volunteered that January 2012 revenues were down 7.6 percent compared to January 2011.

That’s the first real numbers report on this year’s advertising, expected to be down again — but perhaps a slight improvement on the declines of 2011.

McClatchy cut its advertising losses to 5.7 percent year-to-year for the fourth quarter, had operating expenses down nearly 10 percent less and beat Wall Street earnings expectations. Its shares rose 21.4 percent for the day.

The fourth quarter accounted for four-fifths of the year’s net profit of $54 million on $1,270,000,000 revenue. That works out to a net margin of 4.3 percent.

McClatchy reports higher quarterly profits

The McClatchy Co. reported higher quarterly profits today amid signs that its lengthy revenue slump is easing.

Sacramento-based McClatchy, which owns The Bee, said income from continuing operations rose to $43.2 million in the fourth quarter from $33.5 million a year earlier. Bottom line net income grew even more sharply, to $42 million from $14.8 million, because the year-ago results included a big write-down of some Florida land holdings.

Per-share earnings rose to 49 cents from 17 cents.

McClatchy said fourth quarter revenue fell 5 percent, to $351.4 million. Ad revenue was off 5.7 percent, one of the smallest declines in years. Just three months ago, McClatchy's ad sales were dropping 10 percent from the year before.

"We were pleased to see our advertising revenue results improve in the fourth quarter," said Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Pruitt in a prepared statement.

The results beat Wall Street's expectations. Analysts were projecting profits of 40 cents a share and revenue of $347.8 million, according to Thomson.

Pruitt said the improving ad trends were led by retailing, direct marketing and national ads, and "we also posted strong growth in digital-only advertising."

He added, "The fourth quarter reflected one of the strongest holiday seasons in recent years, and we were not suprised to see the momentum slow somewhat in January. Advertising revenues in January were down 7.9 percent compared to January 2011."

McClatchy stock jumped 35 cents to $2.59 a share in early New York Stock Exchange trading.

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Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/07/4245241/mcclatchy-reports-higher-quarterly.html#storylin

John's Florida trip photos

If you want to see photos of John and Paula's Jan. 14-28 trip to Siesta Key, Florida, the late Bill Gorrell's former stomping grounds, click on the headline.

If you want to see the earlier BJ Alums article on BJ reunions in Florida, click Endless era ends

Here's contact info for Olga Reswow

For those who would like to send notes to Olga, her adddress is

Olga Reswow

516 Trease Rd.

Wadsworth, OH 44281

Telephone:   330.334.0671

India's 'First Lady of Lens' dies at 98

Homai Vyarawalla, India’s first female photojournalist, who died on Sunday, chronicled India’s independence with a spirit that was unmatched by the following generations, in part because of changes in India itself.

“Her images of Jawaharlal Nehru addressing a jubilant crowd in Delhi, and of the body of Mohandas K. Gandhi being prepared for cremation, give a vivid sense of the mood of a nation whose self-image was cast in a romantic epic mold,” Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times in a 1997 review of a show in Queens, New York, that featured Ms. Vyarawalla’s work.

She was 98.

See her obituary in New York Times




See also wikipedia

Another Fran Murphey video

Here's another Fran Murphey video provided by Roger Mezger.  Tom Moore shot this one on June 14, 1996, when the Beacon Journal held a lunch for Fran in the Blue Room two weeks before she retired. . There are many recognizable people in this one. IDoug Oplinger was emcee at the party.