Atlanta J-C to cut 90 jobs, trim circulation area

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said Wednesday it will cut its full-time news staff by about 90 people, or nearly 30 percent, to lower costs as it tries to regain profitability amid a severe revenue slump.

The company also announced it will eliminate distribution to seven more outlying counties, reducing its circulation area to 20 metro Atlanta counties, effective April 26. The cutback will pare daily and Sunday circulation by 2 percent.

The AJC’s news staff will drop to about 230 full-time positions, down from about 323 currently. Staff members with five or more years with the company will be offered voluntary buyouts, with layoffs to follow if they don’t achieve the targeted cuts, the company said.

Most of the news staff cuts “will be in production and management, allowing us to keep as many news reporters as possible,” AJC and ajc.com editor Julia Wallace said.

The cuts are expected to be completed in May.

The company laid off 48 part-time news staffers Tuesday and announced the full-time cuts Wednesday morning.

The moves come amid “unprecedented pressures on advertising revenues and the struggling economy,” the company said in a press release.

“The AJC has taken an aggressive approach in changing our business model to ensure long-term viability,” Publisher Doug Franklin said in the release.

“We must reduce costs and become a smaller organization. Today’s announcements are the first in a series of initiatives we’ll announce over the next 90 days to reduce costs,” added Franklin, who was installed as the newspaper’s top executive in January.

It is the third and largest round of job cuts for the AJC news staff, which numbered about 500 in 2006. The first came in 2007 with buyouts for retirement-eligible staff members, followed by a broader buyout in mid-2008.

Counties that will no longer get the AJC print edition are: Barrow, Bibb, Clarke, Houston, Monroe, Oconee and Putnam.

Update from a retired engraver

Here's an update from retired BJ engraver Charles Schmook

I retired in Sept. 1995, WOW! I was in the Engraving Dept. for 14 years, starting in 1981. Since retiring I've kept myself busy being a Co-Director of the Parma Hunger Center. We are open on Tues. and Fri. for a couple hours each day. As you can expect with the economic conditions as they are, we are really busy! Just today we serviced 43 families. A couple of years ago we would average about 15 families per session.

I am still the Secy-Treas. of both the Ohio State Assn. of Allied Printing Trades Councils and the Northeast Ohio Allied Printing Trades Council. Our numbers keep dwindling and I fear the State Assn. is about on its last legs.

For recreation, I have had two motorhomes since retirement and we have done quite a bit of traveling. It's really the way to go! The last few years we have gone to Florida from mid-January to mid-March. We had three daughters and the oldest now lives in Tampa, FL so we do spend a few weeks in that area each year. My son-in-law is an editor for the Tampa Tribune. Previously he was the Editor of the Bonita Banner in Bonita Springs, FL.

A couple of years ago, we did look up Bill Hillsheimer, a former BJ photo-engraver also. He lives in Nakomis, FL.

That's about the size of it from here in Parma.

Take care,

Chuck Schmook

Bill to give newspapers non-profit status

NEW YORK - US Senator Ben Cardin introduced a bill to allow newspapers to operate as nonprofit organizations, following four bankruptcies in the industry in as many months.

Under the proposed bill, advertising and circulation revenue could be claimed as tax exempt, Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, said yesterday in a statement. Newspapers would be barred from making political endorsements.

Los Angeles Times owner Tribune Co., the owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and two other publishers have sought bankruptcy protection since December. Hearst Corp. last week halted the print edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer after ad revenue plunged.

"The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken," Cardin said in the statement.

The Newspaper Revitalization Act would grant newspapers so-called 501(c)(3) tax status typically reserved for educational entities.

"This is really aimed at community newspapers," or newspapers that may be bought and turned into nonprofits, said Susan Sullam, a spokeswoman for Cardin.

The proposal doesn't apply to radio or other media, she said. The bill was submitted to the Senate Finance Committee and doesn't yet have a hearing date.
[Source: Boston.com, website of the Boston Globe]

Blogger Note: Thanks to Ken Krause for send link to this article.

10-day furloughs at PD, other Advance papers

Employees at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Newark Star-Ledger, the Portland Oregonian and other Advance papers have been told to take a 10-day unpaid furlough, Editor & Publisher reports.

There will be salary reductions at some papers.

Advance Publications is instituting mandatory 10-day furloughs and a pension freeze at nearly all of its daily papers outside Michigan, according to Steve Newhouse, chairman of Advance.net and a company spokesman.

Word of the furloughs began to spread last week, but formal announcements were going out today at most of the company's Newhouse newspapers.

Newhouse said the furloughs would likely be required within the next 12 months or by the end of 2009, he was not sure. He also did not have specific figures on the 401 (k) increase.

"It is certainly a difficult day. We are facing unprecedented economic challenges," he said. "Especially in Michigan and the ever-growing challenges to the newspaper business have been documented."

The Oregonian posted a story today stating its furloughs would only be for four days, but salary reductions of five to 10 percent would also be instituted.

Click on the headline to read more.

Charlotte Observer to cut work force

Faced with sharply declining revenues in the recession, The Charlotte Observer will cut its workforce by 14.6 percent and reduce the pay of most remaining employees, the company announced this morning.

In addition to the 82 companywide layoffs -- 60 full-time and 22 part-time employees -- the Observer also plans to reduce the hours of some employees. The company's plan to save costs also includes a one-week furlough for employees later this year if economic conditions don't improve.

"We have really looked every place we can," said Ann Caulkins, the Observer's publisher, during a meeting with newsroom employees this morning.

Click on the headline to read more.

Lexington H-L cuts 15 pct of work force

LEXINGTON, KY -- The Lexington Herald-Leader has cut 15 percent of its workforce as 49 full-time and 4 part-time employees were laid-off Monday morning.

"That alone is really tough to deal with, but when that's the fifth round of lay-offs or buy-outs in under a year – our first round of this started last May – to lose that many people in that short of time has just been excruciating," said Scott Sloan, area chief steward for the Lexington Newspaper Guild, a unit of the Communications Workers of America Local 3372.

Sloan lost 14 of his fellow newsroom guild members as a part of the cut back today. Last week negotiations between the guild and Herald-Leader management allowed for the 14 guild covered workers to be let go by accepting 5 percent wage cuts and a possible five day furlough. Had the guild not accepted those concessions, 19 of their employees would have been terminated today.

The same 5 percent wage cut has been extended to the rest of the Herald-Leader staff making between $25,000 and $100,000. Those at or above the six-figure mark will receive 10 percent wage cuts.

On top to of the lay-off announcements Editor Linda Austin, who has been at the helm of the paper for about 24-months, announced she was leaving to take a job at a university. Which university or position is yet to be announced.

Click on the headline to read more

Ann Arbor News to close in July

The Ann Arbor News will close in July after publishing as the city's daily newspaper since 1835, publisher Laurel Champion announced today.

Heavy losses in revenue drove the decision. Champion said the current "business model is not sustainable." Advertising revenue slumped more than 20 percent in January compared to the same month last year.

"This isn't about abandoning local journalism, it's about serving it up in a very different way," Champion told employees, as she visibly fought back tears.

A new Web-based media company called AnnArbor.com LLC will be launched later this year. In addition to publishing continuously online, AnnArbor.com will publish a print edition twice a week.

Champion, who will be executive vice president of AnnArbor.com, told News employees they can apply for positions with the new company, although job losses are inevitable. A total of 272 people work for the newspaper at both its main downtown Ann Arbor office and its Pittsfield Township printing plant. The newspaper has a daily circulation of nearly 45,000.

Click on the headline to read the full story by Stefanie Murray in the Ann Arbor News

Star Tribune's post-bankruptcy loss: $1.8 million

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has posted a $1.8 million operating loss in its first six weeks in bankruptcy, according to court documents filed Friday.

The paper grossed $24.2 million from Jan. 15 to March 1, and spent $26 million. Management also racked up a hefty $2.2 million in reorganization costs, which are not reflected in the operating loss.

Until now, Strib has managed a profit even as its business deteriorated and it stopped paying off $480 million in debt. In 2008, for example, the operating profit was $31 million.

The danger for a bankrupt business is that no one will lend you money to cover losses, leaving only cutting to keep the doors open.

However, the Strib had squirreled away $25 million before its mid-January filing to keep operating, and the new documents shed some light on the bankruptcy move's timing. Despite the $4 million lost to operations and reorganization, the paper's cash position actually soared to $34 million as Christmastime advertising payments came in.

Click on the headline to read the full story in the Minneapolis Post

Will the bad news ever end?

Charlie Buffum, our New York City correspondent, spotted this timely cartoon and sent it along for your viewilng pleasure.

It's by Eddie Margulies
of the Hackensack (NJ)
Record. If we get sued for copyright infringement, Buffum pays the bill.

Content sharing is increasing

Sharing content with papers nearby or in the same state is just the beginning, according to an Editor & Publisher article by Joe Strupp.

The Northeast Consortium has five papers in New York and New Jersey trading news and photos; in the midwest, the Plain Dealer met with editors from Milwaukee and Pittsburgh in January to discuss expanding an Ohio consortium to other cities.

Click on the headline to read Strupp's article.

Celebrity baggers to work Saturday

Three top Beacon Journa,l news executives may learn about real work from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday at the Acme store, 3235 Manchester Road.

They will be celebrity baggers at Acme to support the Harvest for Hunget program of the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank.

Photos of editor Bruce Wnges, general manager Alton Brown and publisher Andrea Matyhewson were used in a promotion ad for the event on page B2 of Frdiay's newspaper along with photos of Acme president Steve Albrecht and Food Bank CEO Dan Flowers.

Browser, the BJ mascot, and Buck, the Acme counterpart, will be joining in the fun.

.

'Doctor' examines San Diego news

Ken Doctor, who has a blog called Content Bridges which discusses news media, weighs in on the involvement of Beacon publisher David Black in the purchase ot the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Doctor’s bio on his blog says he completed a 21-year career with Knight Ridder in 2004, where he served as vp/content services, vp/strategy and vp/editorial for Knight Ridder Digital. We could not google a disinterested bio on him.

Here’s part of what he writes. (Click on the headline for more)

Black Press is a major publisher, but unknown to most in the US industry. Its roots are in Canada and strongly in smaller, community papers. It first arrived on many radar screens when it unexpectedly bought the Akron Beacon-Journal from McClatchy, after Gary Pruitt divested some of the Knight Ridder newspapers it bought in 2006.

That purchase registered surprise. Why was Black Press buying a small-metro daily, competitive with the Plain Dealer and host of other adjoining papers, and what would it do with it?

What's happened in Akron shouldn't buoy hopes for Union-Tribune staff or for its readers.

Mainly, the Beacon-Journal, like most of its brethren, has gotten smaller. At least three rounds of layoffs have reduced the staff by more than a third. David Black himself, in recently visiting the paper, told people the newsroom looked "thin."

In other ways, the Black ownership has been unremarkable. The Beacon-Journal has not distinguished itself in pushing its newsroom to embrace web-first, web-only, blog-friendly reporting. The online sales side is a work in progress.

[Blog interrupt: Are not the last two graphds true of most newspapers today?]

Judging from Akron,we can intuit that the new private equity owners and David Black will look first to "efficiencies." That means less headcount and a concentration on lower-paid, less-experienced reporting staff. Morale -- never a newspaper strong suit -- will take another hit.

We don't see savvy Internet savvy in the new DNA, but we know so little about Platinum here that we could -- and would like to -- be surprised.

Interestingly, if you talk with restructuring firms working with newspaper companies these days, one of their questions is: "Are they cutting too deeply?" Uh-oh. If the restructuring guys, the guys who know how and where to wield the efficiency knife in assorted industries, think that newspaper companies may be cutting too much of their core, then, we see the depth of the problem.

Indeed, since Knight-Ridder hit the market in 2006, numerous PE companies have kicked newspaper tires and eyed their books. The near-universal verdict: this isn't a business we can get into and out of in three to five years at a good profit. Why is this one different?

My best guess: The Union-Tribune will get smaller and much more local-local focused. And that real estate under its building (and the Union-Tribune's other San Diego real estate holdings, which we assume are part of the deal), that may be a real motivator for the purchase. Commercial real estate has seized up in the recession and the credit crunch. But that's cyclical. It will come back -- and far faster than metro newspaper value..

Barbara Patterson dies at 78

[Wife of retired BJ sports columnist Jack Patterson]

Barbara Ann Patterson, 78, of Munroe Falls, passed away Tuesday, March 17, 2009.

She was born May 31, 1930, to Frank and Bernice Lyntz and raised in Warren, Ohio, prior to moving to the Akron area in 1955.

Barbara and her husband, Jack Patterson, were classmates at Warren G. Harding High School and dated after Jack returned from military service in 1951. They were married in 1954 and raised five children. During their 55 years together one of their favorite activities was attending 31 Kentucky Derby events.

She is survived by Jack; sons, Mike (Michelle) of Boca Raton, Florida, and John (Amy) of Cuyahoga Falls; daughters, Kathy of North Canton, Valerie of Tallmadge and Patricia (Scott) of San Jose, California; and grandchildren, Kaitlyn and Kassidy; Zane, Jessa and Joy; Mike, Molly and Nick; Amber; and Andrew and Dan. Barbara will be dearly missed by her family as a wonderful wife, mother and grandmother.

Calling hours will be held Friday, March 20, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Redmon Funeral Home in Stow, with funeral services Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at Northampton United Methodist Church in Cuyahoga Falls. Burial will follow at Silver Springs Cemetery. (REDMON, STOW, 330-688-6631)
[Beacon Journal, Akron, OH,Thursday, March 19, 2009, page B6, col. 4]

Black reported involved in San Diego sale

Beacon Journal publisher Davjd Black is involved in Platinum Equity which has agreed to purchase the San Diego Union-DTribune, according to a story in Editor & Publisher.

After sitting on the auction block the newspzper has finally found a buyer in the Beverly Hill, Calif.-based private equity firm Platinum Equity which has agreed to purchase the daily from The Copley Press. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The San Diego Union-Tribune first reported the sale.

In a written statement to the U-T, Harold W. Fuson Jr., an executive vice president at Copley said, "This is a vital business with a long tradition of public service and a pre-eminent position in one of America's finest media markets. At this important juncture, we believe Platinum Equity is the right partner for the Union-Tribune, its employees and the San Diego community."

Black, the head of Black Press, which operates newspapers in Candada and Honolulu/. as well as the Beacon, is said to be involved with Platinum Equity, reports the U-T's Thomas Kupper.

Also in a written statement, Louis Samson with Platinum Equity, said: "The Union-Tribune is more than a business. It's an institution in San Diego. But it faces enormous challenge in a period of tremendous upheaval for the newspaper industry. We will bring a strong operational focus that helps ensure the Union-Tribune not only survives in this market, but thrives."

Several other parties were reportedly interested in the paper, including the Tribune Co., MediaNews Group, and the Yucaipa Companies.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter.

Union-Tribune Editor Karin Winner broke the news of the newspaper's sale to the newsroom around 11 a.m. today. "She looked delighted," said one newsroom staffer.

"[Winner's] first words were 'This is terrific news,'" said the staffer....

When asked whether she will be staying on as editor, Winner said: "I don't know." She also said she was not made privy to the final sale price.

Newspapers do matter, Princeton study finds

The shutdown of a newspaper has an immediate and measurable impact on local political engagement, according to a new study by economists at Princeton University.

Assessing the consequences of the closing of the Cincinnati Post at the end of 2007, the researchers found that fewer people voted in subsequent elections, fewer candidates ran in opposition to the incumbents and that, as a result, the incumbents had a better chance of being returned to office.

“If voter turnout, a broad choice of candidates and accountability for incumbents are important to democracy, we side with those who lament” the decline of newspapers, said economists Sam Schulhofer-Wohl and Miguel Garrido, who conducted the study.

As a onetime reporter and copyeditor who forsook journalism for a PhD in economics, Schulhofer-Wohl might be accused of having a soft spot for newspapers.

But he and his colleague ran a detailed, hard-nosed analysis of news coverage and voting patterns to determine that the political landscape in the Kentucky counties across the Ohio River from Cincinnati changed significantly after the Post ceased publication on Dec. 31, 2007.

Knight Foundation CEO: Experimentation needed

"What needs to happen is a great deal of experimentation," Knight Foundation CEO and former Miami Herald publisher Alberto Ibarguen said in a discussion on Jim Lehrer’s News Hour on CBS

"Some of it is happening in the industry," said Ibarguen. "I wish a lot more of it had happened when newspaper companies were making considerable profits only a few years ago, but it didn't."

Click on the headline to see more of the discussion with him and other panelists: Lauren Rich Fine, practitioner in residence at Kent State University's College of Communication and Information, and Dave Hunke, publisher of the Detroit Free Press

You can see or download a livestream video of the program

KR destroyer Bruce Sherman retires

Next week, the slow, inexorable decline of newspapers will be marked by another datapoint when Bruce Sherman, the 61-year-old CEO of Private Capital Management, retires. For those who have followed the newspaper industry's financial travails, Sherman was the money manager who forced the merger of Knight Ridder to McClatchy back in 2006, and then, along with Morgan Stanley fund manager Hassan Elmasry, took on Arthur Sulzberger at the New York Times Company.

In the debut issue of Condé Nast Portfolio in May 2007, a profile of Sherman. noted that for months, the press had been labeling the legendary value investor as "secretive" and "shy" since he wouldn't grant interviews even as he forced Knight Ridder to sell itself to McClatchy for $6.5 billion. Sherman didn't follow the maxim that if you're going to invest in media, you better be prepared to talk to reporters.

At the time, Knight Ridder owned the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Miami Herald along with 30 other dailies and Sherman was portrayed as the scourge of journalism, for precipitating the shotgun marriage of the two newspaper chains. As part of the deal, McClatchy put the Inquirer on the market, and also sold off the Minneapolis Star Tribune to raise cash. In January, the Star Tribune filed for bankruptcy, and the Inquirer has continued to struggle under its new owners, Philadelphia businessman Brian Tierney.

For everyone involved, the deal was a disaster. McClatchy's stock has dropped from the $40s at the time of the merger in June 2006, to 55-cents as of yesterday's close. For Sherman, his newspaper investments were one of his few missteps in an acclaimed career. Many investors heralded him for his ability to put money into undervalued companies. His firm made early investments in the telecom firm Qualcomm that returned more than 1500 percent, and he made another fortune in Apple's stock as it surged on sales of the iPod.

He spent more than $1.5 billion of his clients' money on newspaper companies, owning some 10 percent of the New York Times, 3 percent of Gannett and 12 percent of McClatchy. Sherman eventually sold off all of his newspaper investments at a loss. His firm, PCM, once managed more than $30 billion, but saw client money dwindle as his performance suffered.

About those good old days salaries

Gary Pruitt still draws down $935,000 to run McClatchy – a 15% reduction which he recently voluntarily imposed but it’s still too much. Salaries at around $1 million in a business that is fighting for every penny to pay back debt are really not on. Craig Dubow, Gannett CEO, voluntarily took a $200,000 salary cut last November, lasting through this year but he still pulls in $1 million, and that’s too high when Gannett newspapers are being closed (Tucson end of this week) and employees around the country placed on unpaid furloughs.

Sulzberger gets $1 million, so does Times Company CEO Janet Robinson, and yet the company had to do a lease-back of its building and take a 14% loan from Carlos Slim to ensure debt payments are met this year.

Objecting to those numbers is not being mean-minded. A few hundred thousand from this executive and a couple of hundred thousand from this executive – those amounts add up quickly and can all go towards helping with the debt payments.

Salaries of chief financial officers, chief operating officers, and chief whatever they call themselves these days, are all based on the good old days when newspapers were pulling in huge profits after debt. Now profits are down; so keeping salaries as they were in the good old days without increase, or giving up a couple of hundred thousand or so is not enough given what is happening to the business.

Real journalists no longer needed

'In an era where Paris Hilton and Angelina Jolie’s breastfeeding earn the most hits off our website, maybe real journalists are not needed.

"But the public will be far poorer for it — and I worry about the citizenship, educational and democratic implications of it all.'

~ Debera Harrell, Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter

From Sleepless in Seattle, thoughts and reglecctions from staffers on the demise of their 146-year old newspaper published in Columbia Journalism Review

From the publisher: Goodbye, Seattle

Here's the goodbye from the Seattle P-I in a commemorative issue:

Thank you for making us who we were

By DAVID MCCUMBER
P-I MANAGING EDITOR

Goodbye, Seattle.

Thanks for everything.

We probably didn't tell you enough how proud we were to be part of you.

We love your saw-toothed Klondiked Boeing-proud past. It's our past, too.

We even love your nervous overcaffeinated undercapitalized Sonics-free present.

And we're sure you'll still be pretty fetching in the future as a bored-tunnel light-railed one-paper joint (or paper-free zone, as the regrettable case may be).

We love your Koolhaas library and your defiant little Edith Macefield house. We love your ratty Pike Place Market and rattier Pioneer Square, complete with the ersatz totem pole standing in for the real one the P-I-backed drunken expedition stole from the Tlingits in 1899 (not our finest move).

Down here on Elliott, we love it when Rainier rolls into view on mystical ball bearings, and we love the way our old globe looks when the winter sun sets behind it about 4 p.m. and lights up the bay with more fire than Hempfest.

We love the Blue Angels and the hydros and the Duwamish and Northwest Harvest and Dave Niehaus and Elliott Bay Books and Tom Douglas' coconut cream pie. We love guys named Warren (Moon and Magnuson), and Jimi Hendrix, and walking around Green Lake and along Alki and Golden Gardens and through the arboretum. We love the Suzzallo and Salumi and the Burke-Gilman and the Fremont Troll and the best women's crew in the world. We love Benaroya Hall, and also the Croc and the Showbox and the Tractor. We love Norwegians, but most of us fear lutefisk. We love taking ferries, and not using umbrellas, and eating lunch at Bakeman's and the Pecos Pit and the Shanty.

All of which is to say, we love you.

We're overwhelmingly grateful to you for supporting us for 146 years -- for buying us on the street, for inviting us into your homes, for placing ads with us, for telling us what you think and helping us be better. And, over the last two months, for telling us how much you'll miss us.

And we're damned sorry we won't be here in print to cover you. When our kids and your kids make this place even better than it is now. When the Mariners win the World Series. When the city and the county and the state step up to their responsibilities to give our youths better schools and alternatives to shooting each other in the streets, to clean up both traffic and Puget Sound, to actually plow snow, to hold cops accountable, to make this a better place to do business and buy a home.

We won't be here to nudge you along in that old traditional newspaper way, so you're going to have to figure all that out, and more, without us.

It's been a hell of a ride, from Skid Road to the SLUT, from the Great Fire to the Kindle, the first edition to the last deadline in a gut-punched newsroom, and we never wanted to see it end.

Remember: We'll continue the P-I bloodline online with seattlepi.com.

Come see us in the pixels.

Rocky crew launches news web

Today the founders of IwantmyRocky.com and other former Rocky Mountain News staffers announced a subscription drive to launch a new online news site, InDenverTimes.com. The site is mix of free and premium content. The founders need 50,000 pledges / subscribers by April 23, the 150th anniversary of the first Rocky Mountain News, to launch the full site on May 4. Former Rocky writers Sam Adams, Mary Chandler, Lisa Bornstein, Mark Brown, David Milstead, Chris Tomasson, Aaron Lopez, Mark Wolf and Gary Massaro have already joined the staff of InDenverTimes.com. Help us prove that good journalism can still be good business. Subcribe here: http://indenvertimes.com

Vatican to prepare new document on media

VATICAN CITY - It's been 17 years since the last pastoral instruction on the means of communication, and it's time for an update, according to Benedict XVI's secretary of state.

The pope acknowledged that January's lifting of the 1988 excommunication of the four Society prelates caused a "discussion more heated than any we have seen for a long time," and that the situation could have been avoided if the Vatican had paid more attention to the Internet as a source of information.

Referring to the scandal caused by bishop Richard Williamson, who appeared on Swedish television denying the extent of the Holocaust days before the decree was made public, the Pope wrote: "I have been told that attentive following of the news accessible on Internet would have given the possibility of timely awareness of the problem. From it I draw the lesson that, in the future, we in the Holy See will have to pay more attention to this source of news."

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, said a new document of pastoral guidance for the Church's communicative commitment is necessary, as the last document of these characteristics -- "Aetatis Novae" -- was issued in 1992.

"The 17 years that have passed represent a very long parenthesis for the rate of development and growth of the media: It is the period in which a series of small and great revolutions have matured that, as a constant current, have radically transformed the pre-existing scene," said Cardinal Bertone.

Seattle P-I to publish last edition Tuesday

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will roll off the presses for the last time Tuesday.

The Hearst Corp. announced Monday that it would stop publishing the 146-year old newspaper, Seattle's oldest business, and cease delivery to more than 117,600 weekday readers.

The company, however, said it would maintain seattlepi.com, making it the nation's largest daily newspaper to shift to an entirely digital news product.

"Tonight we'll be putting the paper to bed for the last time," Editor and Publisher Roger Oglesby told a silent newsroom Monday morning. "But the bloodline will live on."

In a news release, Hearst CEO Frank Bennack Jr. said, "Our goal now is to turn seattlepi.com into the leading news and information portal in the region."

The new operation will be more than a newspaper online, Steven Swartz, president of Hearst Newspapers, said. The so-called "community platform" will feature breaking news, columns from prominent Seattle residents, community databases, photo galleries, 150 citizen bloggers and links to other journalistic outlets.

On Jan. 9, New York-based Hearst put the Seattle P-I up for sale and said that the paper would stop printing if a buyer were not found within 60 days.

Despite community concern, no buyer emerged. The P-I lost $14 million last year.

Click on the head.ine to read the rest of the story and see a video

Raleigh N&O to cut 78 or 11% of force

The Raleigh (NC) News & Observer Publishing Co. this afternoon announced it is cutting jobs, cutting pay and requiring unpaid furloughs for its staff as it contends with steep declines in advertising revenue.

The newspaper company, which also owns community publications such as The Cary News and The Herald in Smithfield, will eliminate 78 positions, or 11 percent of its work force. The equivalent of about 27 full-time positions in The N&O newsroom are included.

The N&O will require remaining workers to take a week off without pay between May 1 and Oct. 31.

And it will cut salaries from 2.5 percent for lower-paid employees to 10 percent for the higher paid. Those making less than $25,000 a year won't see a pay cut.

"We are making our way through difficult times by making difficult decisions," N&O Publisher Orage Quarles III wrote in a memo to employees. "It is never easy to say goodbye to so many of our friends and colleagues, but we must make these additional cuts to sustain our company and adjust to new competitive and economic realities."

The cuts were expected and have been telegraphed for weeks after The N&O's parent, The McClatchy Co. of Sacramento, Calif., said it had to pare its business. The newspaper chain is wrestling with a severe drop in revenue as it tries to pay down debt.

McClatchy's borrowings jumped in 2006 after its $4 billion purchase of larger rival Knight Ridder. It has worked to pay down that debt and now owes about $2 billion. But with revenue falling precipitously, it risks violating bank covenants if it can't keep expenses in check.

During the past year, the company has eliminated its dividend, outsourced operations and required several rounds of cuts at its newspapers, which also include The Sacramento Bee and The Miami Herald.

When a 14-year-old can blow up your business

“When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem,.” Clay Shirky writes on his blog.

His take on what has happened to newspapers states:

: "There's no general model for newspapers to replace the one the Internet just broke," " writes Shirky in his widely circulated essay. "With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data,.

"Who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs? I don't know. Nobody knows. We're collectively living through 1500, when it's easier to see what's broken than what will replace it."

There were 285 comments the last tine we looked.

Click on the headline to read Shirky. Thanks to Jim Kavanagh for sending us the link.

Knight Foundation: Reshaping journalism?

Knight Foundation spending millions to reshape journalism
The Knight Foundation is funding innovative journalism experiments, searching for answers to the future of media.


In San Francisco, freelance journalists use a website to solicit your story ideas and donations to do the reporting on them. In Chicago, a team of computer programmers links databases that allow you to find out whether someone was mugged on your street and whether the corner pizza joint has mice. And in Bakersfield, Calif., anyone can publish his or her own newspaper.

Is this the future of journalism? No one knows for certain.

But these initiatives and other journalistic experiments are getting a chance to take root because of the personal fortunes and foresight of two old-school Miami newspapermen, long deceased.

Brothers John S. and James L. Knight were media titans in the era of upright typewriters and gray fedoras -- publishing newspapers, including The Miami Herald, in more than two dozen communities.

Now, their Miami-based charity, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, is underwriting an ambitious effort to shape journalism in the digital age, through a five-year, $25 million initiative called the Knight News Challenge.

''We're at a point now, a period of transition, where we need a lot of experimentation,'' said Alberto Ibargüen, chief executive of the Knight Foundation, and publisher of The Miami Herald from 1998 to 2005. ``We're trying to fund experiments that will lead us to answers about the future of media.''

OTHER FUNDING

Knight is not the only charity funding media innovation. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, for instance, funds innovative and participatory journalism projects, and the Ford Foundation underwrites research and technology initiatives.

Still, the Knight News Challenge funds dozens of projects, such as Spot.us. Dreamed up by David Cohn, 26, a freelance journalist in San Francisco, it works like this: Journalists and readers propose stories on his website. Then donations are solicited to cover the reporting costs.

If the promised donations reach a preset threshold -- typically $1,000 -- a journalist is dispatched and the story gets done. If not, the story idea is discarded.

It's participatory investigative journalism. The money has to come from a variety of sources, though, and contributions are capped to avoid personal crusades.

The stories, or in some cases video reports, are posted on Spot.us, but they can also be purchased by a traditional media organization. In such cases, the money raised is refunded to the donors, Cohn said, so they can apply it to another story proposal.

''What I'm trying to find out through Spot.us is if journalism can be valued as a civic good that people donate towards,'' said Cohn, whose idea got $340,000 in seed money from Knight last year.

Click on the headline to read more

Mutter weighs in on doomed newspapers list

Alan D. Mutter who writes the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, weighs in on Doug McIUntyre’s list of 10 doomed newspapers. Mutter, former city editor of the Chicago Sun-Times (1984) who became the N\o. 2 editor of the San Francisco Chronicle before he left the business in 1988, often gets quoted on media matters. Here’s what he writes:.

About that newspaper ‘doomsday' list

Don’t lose too much sleep over the list of 10 supposedly doomed newspapers that made the rounds in the last couple of days.

Although some of the papers one day may succumb to anemic readership and revenues, there is not enough information or analysis underlying the scary list to support the proposition that the publications are more or less doomed than any of 10, 20 or 30 other papers that might have been named, instead.

For the record, the papers on the list are the Philadelphia Daily News, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Miami Herald, Detroit News, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, New York Daily News, Forth Worth Star-Telegram and Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The hit list, which was produced by Douglas A. McIntyre at 24/7 Wall St., was rapidly and uncritically republished everywhere from Time Magazine to the Drudge Report. Although Doug is a friend whose ordinarily thoughtful work I have cited on occasion, there is no hard data or deep analysis to support his findings.

Doug gives no evidence why the Plain Dealer is any more endangered than any of the other newspapers published by its parent, Advance Publications. Or why the Miami and Fort Worth papers are more at risk than some of the other McClatchy titles.

Even though weak economies are hardest on the No. 2 papers in two-newspaper towns, Doug predicts the demise of the print edition of the Boston Globe while saying nothing of the apparently fragile financial status of the far smaller Boston Herald.

Two more No. 2 papers, the Sun-Times and Philadelphia Daily News, indeed are facing steep challenges, as discussed respectively here and here.

Doug joins the many commentators who have been quick to predict the demise of the San Francisco Chronicle, but, as explained here, it is unlikely the Chron will be shut down. Rather, it almost certainly will be folded in due course into the cluster of MediaNews Group papers that encircle it in northern California.

Given that MediaNews, the parent of the Detroit News, is locked into a complex series of financial relationships with Gannett, the senior partner in the Motown joint-operating agreement, it seems unlikely the parties can let the News fail.

While the Strib and N.Y. News face fierce cross-town competition in their respective markets, each has the potential to partner with a rival paper to drastically reduce operating expenses and, thus, enhance profitability. The potential partner in the Twin Cities is the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The N.Y. News could team with Newsday, the New York Post or even the Newark Star-Ledger.

Doug’s doomsday list omits the names of some papers that arguably could be more endangered than the ones he mentioned. Until I have sufficient data to make my case, however, I’m not going there.

Murphey postcard arrives 47 years later

A postcard mailed by Fran Murphey from Montana in 1962 finally arrived last week. A page 1 story about It by Beacon Journal reporter Jim Carney today spurred an avalanche of inquires from the the AP, newspapers and TV stations.

Click on the headline to read Carney’s story. Here’s his lead;

HUDSON: Last week, Dave Conn, a Hudson insurance agent, opened his post office box and found a postcard mailed from Helena, Mont., in 1962 and signed ''Fran.''

He didn't know who Fran was, but he didn't have to show it to very many people in Hudson before he had the answer.

The Beacon Journal's late reporter Frances B. Murphey, a fixture at the newspaper for 55 years, traveled often, mailing thousands of postcards from major cities and remote locations around the world to her friends back home.

One of those friends was Marion White, a longtime member of the Hudson Village Council. White died in 1988, and Conn took over her post office box shortly thereafter.

Murphey, a legendary character in Akron history, chronicled the lives of people in the suburbs and rural areas, attended fairs, took pictures and covered trustee meetings and fires during her five decades at the paper.

She died in 1998 at the age of 75 with a collection of about 200,000 postcards.

What she wrote to Marion White tells the story of that summer in 1962.

The front was inscribed with, ''Greetings from Montana.''

The back was dated July 5 and carried a 3-cent stamp.

Murphey was traveling across the country by train with co-worker Polly Paffilas, and the card said they were ''eastbound on the NP RR,'' likely referring to the Northern Pacific Railroad.

She wrote: ''Had a marvelous time in Montana.''

''Saw cattle, horses and mountains and water almost in every direction. Fed elk and deer.''

The fascinating story continues. Postal inspectors say they often fine errant mail and mail it whenever it is found.

One-third won't miss newspaper, Pew survey shows

Fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community "a lot." Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.

Not unexpectedly, those who get local news regularly from newspapers are much more likely than those who read them less often to see the potential shutdown of a local paper as a significant loss. More than half of regular newspaper readers (56%) say that if the local newspaper they read most often no longer published -- either in print or online -- it would hurt the civic life of the community a lot; an almost identical percentage (55%) says they would personally miss reading the paper a lot if it were no longer available.

The latest weekly News Interest Index, conducted March 6-9 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, finds that the public is continuing to pay close attention to news about the economic crisis and President Obama's agenda. About a quarter (26%) say the unveiling of Obama's plan to set aside $630 billion toward overhauling the U.S. health care system was the story they followed most closely last week. Nearly one-in-five (18% each) say their top story was the rising unemployment rate or the major drops in the stock market.

Laid Off? Try Helium. Pay isn't great but

As one of our anonymous commenters noted recently, it ain’t necessary to have those high-paid, worn out union reporters when you can get good young reporters. Anybody can be a reporter.

Mark Ranalli, CEO of Helium , explains that in a Fox News (where else?) interview. The promo for the piece says that this guy actually may be able to help struggling newspapers to survive..

Helim is a self-proclaimed citizen journalism outlet offering a platform for writers to write articles on topics about which they are knowledgeable.

Helium just signed a contract with Hearst, Ranali said. He explained that citizen journalsim can help cut costs.

“‘But it doesn’t really help them with advertising, does it?” the comely interviewer asked.

Ranali skirted that issue and said advertising eventually will be coming back

Click on the headline to see the video and then check out Helium if you are interested.

Here’s what the Helium website says;

GET PAID

Helium is also a knowledge co-operative where our writers are also our editors who read and rate every article on the site.

At Helium, we believe that everyone can contribute what they know to share with millions of readers around the globe.

At Helium, we believe readers want a choice of viewpoints – not just one opinion on any subject.

At Helium, we believe publishers need an easier, more efficient way to get the content they need.

At Helium, great writing rises to the top. And great writing reaps great rewards.

* Helium’s best writers earn cash through:
* Upfront Payments for contributed work
* Daily revenue share
* Writing contests

* Our best writers are recognized through:
* Citizen Journalism Awards
* Published articles through Marketplace
* Professional journalism organizations

What are you waiting for? JOIN HELIUM TODAY! Whether you’re a professional looking to stretch your talents, a journalist establishing a web presence, a freelancer getting your career off the ground or a reader researching information, there’s something for you at Helium.

Blog Addend: Thanks to Ken Krause for the great news tip: pointing us to the video.

The crocus is in bloom in Firestone Park

It's eight days 'til Spring and the crocus is in bloom in Firestone Park.

The Crocus
By Harriet Beecher Stowe
Beneath the sunny autumn sky,
With gold leaves dropping round,
We sought, my little friend and I,
The consecrated ground,
Where, calm beneath the holy cross,
O'ershadowed by sweet skies,
Sleeps tranquilly that youthful form,
Those blue unclouded eyes.

Around the soft, green swelling mound
We scooped the earth away,
And buried deep the crocus-bulbs
Against a coming day.
"These roots are dry, and brown, and sere;
Why plant them here?" he said,
"To leave them, all the winter long,
So desolate and dead."

"Dear child, within each sere dead form
There sleeps a living flower,
And angel-like it shall arise
In spring's returning hour."
Ah, deeper down cold, dark, and chill
We buried our heart's flower,
But angel-like shall he arise
In spring's immortal hour.

In blue and yellow from its grave
Springs up the crocus fair,
And God shall raise those bright blue eyes,
Those sunny waves of hair.
Not for a fading summer's morn,
Not for a fleeting hour,
But for an endless age of bliss,
Shall rise our heart's dear flower

The Wright stuff

Dave Boerner, engraver Pat Dougherty, Tom Moore and Ken Wright

Cal Deshong, Gene McClellan, Carl Nelson and Al Hunsicker--printers all

Ken Wright, among the nine BJ alums at today's monthly get-together at Papa Joe’s restaurant on Akron-Peninsula Road, has bounced back from a year of surgeries. Well enough for Ken and his wife to spend several weeks in January at their son’s Miami house.

Ken was the Composing electronics coordinator at the BJ. John Olesky was the Newsroom’s coordinator, so the two spent a lot of time together in the same room ushering in the early days of the BJ’s computer era.

Most of the time at Papa Joe's was spent laughing at tales about some of the characters at the BJ over the decades. And there were plenty of those, in every department. If you show up at 1 p.m. the second Wednesday of the month, you can join in the laughter.

Besides Ken, others at the March gathering were Pat Dougherty of Engraving, Cal DeShong, Gene McClellan, Al Hunsicker and Gene Nelson of Composing, and Tom Moore, Dave Boerner and John Olesky from the Newsroom.

Blog Note: Sorry, no mugshot provided of John Olesky. That's the thanks he gets for posting the information. That could be his bald head in the photo above. Nice pay he gets.

Commentary: Sharing today's troubled times

By Harry Liggett
Scoop was a really dumb word, I always thought, but some of us are old enough to remember the competitive spirit of the newspaper game which made reporters and editors hustle. You grabbed the first copy of the competition’s edition, glanced over the headlines on page 1 and breathed a sigh of relief when you were not beat on some story. You started paging through to see what else you might have missed.

I remember the agony, too, and the bitching from reporters you grabbed early in the morning, handing them a clip from the opposition and pleading with them to try to find a new angle. You knew–and they knew–you were just trying to recover from missing a story. I remember a few people at the Beacon Journal like Charlie Buffum, Don Bandy and the late Bruce Larrick,who could always make that happen–but OH, not without bitching.

I remember, too, my early days on the smallest and worst of three small dailies in Tuscarawas County when we worried about being scooped even on a PTA notice. When the BJ, PD and other newspapers in Ohio agreed to a deal to share news, some old timers could not believe it.. Share news?

It is not a new idea, however. In that crowded newspaper county I just mentioned there was a similar deal which the publishers said then was because of the manpower shortage during World War II. It was supposedly only to share routine news. If a fatal auto crash or routine accident happened in your third of the county, you covered the story and shared it with the others.

In those old days there was a phone conference call with each reporter reading stories he had while the others typed away. Each of the three reporters took a turn reading to the others until all the copy was shared. It was a great day when a teletype connection was established to relieve the burden of reading a story over the phone. There is only one newspaper in that county now.

When sharing of stories was introduced by the Ohio newspapers we reported it on this blog with a bit of a sneer. A young viewer asked what was wrong with the idea. There was no answer because it’s difficult to explain. It was like asking Why do you like sports?

It’s the thrill, the pride or something.

And all this long treatise is just to bring you the latest news:.

It’s a memo sent to Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) members by the sports editor of the Plain Dealer. Here’s the lead:

Sent: 3/6/2009 4:38 PM
To: [Multiple recipients]
Subject: Content Sharing -- A message

Fellow members of APSE,

I am trying to measure interest in sharing sports content nationwide. Many of you are already sharing it in your region and with former rivals. Nationwide sharing is one way we as members of APSE might be able to help each other in these troubled economic times.

Our final observation: Will today’s troubled times be tomorrow’s good old days?

Revisiting Knight Ridder purchase

There is a brief on page 24 of the March issue of Conde Nast Portfolio entitled "The Done Deal" and headlined The $4.6 Billion Scoop / Revisiting McClatchy's purchase of Knight Ridder. It goes thusly:

The Deal: Two years ago this month, the McClatchy Co. paid $4.6 billion to buy Knight Ridder Inc. and its 32 dailies, among them the Miami Herald. McClatchy, based in Sacramento, owned only 12 newspapers at the time, and one analyst joked that "McClatchy is a dolphin swallowing a small whale." The acquisition, which made McClatchy the third-largest newspaper publisher in the U.S., was expected to save the company more than $60 million once the two firms were fully integrated.

The Aftermath: McClatchy immediately sold 12 Knight Ridder papers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, and in 2008 laid off 20 percent of its employees. But the company is still carrying about $2 billion in debt, and since 2006 its stock has cratered, falling from almost $50 a share to about $1. In 2008, advertising was down 22.4 percent through November.

The Bottom Line: Bad idea, worse timing -- as if Zenith had decided to snap up Sony's Betamax operations circa 1987. -- Josh Saul

[Above is from Larry Froelich]

Fort Wayne Newspapers cuts salaries, hours

Report from Mitch Harper’s Fort Wayne Observed blog:

Fort Wayne Newspapers employees are subject to some severe belt-tightening. Employees have been informed that salaried employees will be subject to a 6% reduction in pay; full-time hourly employees will be have weekly hours cut from 40 hours to 37.5. 401K contributions have also been reduced from a match of 50% to 25%.

However, there are no employee lay-offs and reportedly no cuts in other benefits such as health insurance.

Fort Wayne Newspapers performs business functions for both the News-Sentinel and Journal Gazette under a joint operating agreement. FWN is owned by The Journal Gazette and Ogden Newspapers. The News Sentinel is a former Knight Ridder newspaper.

PD publisher says report baseless

“Don’t believe everything you read” is a good rule. There were two posts on this blog Monday forecasting gloom and doom for two area newspapers: the Plain Dealer and the Canton Repository. On both posts, we advised viewers to be wary.

One of the posts put the PD in a list of 10 newspapers in danger of closing. The reaction came swiftly from PD publisher Terrance Egger, according to a story on Cleveland.com by PD reporter Patrick O’Donnell.

Though this appeared on Time's Web site and with a Time logo on Yahoo!, the report was from an online-only site, 247WallSt.com, O’Donnell wrote..

"People put this out there and associate Time Magazine with it," Egger said, upon hearing that another source produced the report. He doubted readers would notice that distinction. "It's still the Time brand it's associated with."

The BJ Alums post did say that the report came from 24/7 WallSt.blog of Douglas McIntyre

If we had done a little more homework we would have learned, as O’Donnell pointed out, that McIntyre is the son of Bruce McIntyre, former city editor at the BJ. That explains everything a little better for some of the old timers who worked for Bruce who was nicknamed “Mac the Knife” because he liked to stick the knife in. So the kid gets it honest.

[If you are out there somewhere, Mac, send us an update]

The Time Website report (they get all their reports from someone) was indeed sensational but not completely baseless. All newspapers are in trouble and that is sensational.

The other post on the Repository was completely ridiculous as we pointed out.

Read the report on the Time website and the answer on Cleveland.com

Look who we found on Facebook

Photo of Cathy stolen from Facebook

We found former BJ staffer Cathy Strong in a kayak on Facebook under an assumed name and asked for an update. Here it is:

In some ways it is same-oh same-oh for me. I kayak all summer and snowboard all winter. I'm still racing on the snowboard and winning neat prizes. I'm still lecturing at Massey University, although that comes to an end in May when they drop back in staff. The big thing is I'm working on my PhD in journalism. These things take several years, but as a convergence journalist at heart I want to get it off my plate NOW and be onto something else this afternoon.

Daughters have put me into a new social field. Oldest Rebecca is still an officer in the NZ Navy but she also has two little daughters, the joy of my life. Second Penelope is in Boston trying to pretend to be an American with her Kiwi accent. She keeps me up with the realities of the recession we read about. And youngest Amanda is Radio New Zealand journalist, last year worked for SBS Broadcasting in Sydney, and off to Taiwan soon to learn mandarine. Now that she is getting to be a proficient journalist we have made a pact that we won't ever work in the same newsroom. She doesn't want her Mum showing her up and I don't want my daughter to show me up!!

Oh I'll tell you a funny story. I recently ran into some old papers I've kept in a box for 3 decades. I showed them to Amanda and she was stunned by the little notes I had from editor John Olesky from the early 70s. They were all in rhyme... little poems. Because I worked night and he edited in the morning we had to correspond by notes, not email. He apologised for introducing an error in my copy in a poem, and told me off for a grammatical mistake in a poem. Until I found these notes I'd forgotten that we had these exchanges, and that I would respond in rhyme too. Daughter Amanda was stunned, and impressed. She reckoned that if more editors did that today perhaps young people wouldn't flee the newsroom so fast.

Is Time running for 10 newspapers?

"The Plain Dealer will be shut or go digital by the end of next year." That’s the word from the latest issue (Monday, March 9) of Time magazine. The top “must read” story is headlined “The Ten ,Most Endangered Newspapers in America" The PD is No. 10 on the list which Time admits it got from 24/7 Wall blog. The Miami Herald is No. 3.

Here’s the word on No. 10:

10. The Cleveland Plain Dealer is in one of the economically weakest markets in the country. Its parent, Advance Publications, has already threatened to close its paper in Newark. Employees gave up enough in terms of concessions to keep the paper open. Advance, owned by the Newhouse family, is carrying the burden of its paper plus Conde Nast, its magazine group which is losing advertising revenue. The Plain Dealer will be shut or go digital by the end of next year.

Reprinted below are the first two graphs of the article and the list of the other nine

Over the last few weeks, the newspaper industry has entered a new period of decline. The parent of the papers in Philadelphia declared bankruptcy as did the Journal Register chain. The Rocky Mountain News closed and the Seattle Post Intelligencer, owned by Hearst, will almost certainly close or only publish online. Hearst has said it will also close The San Francisco Chronicle if it cannot make massive cuts at the paper. The most recent rumor is that the company will fire half of the editorial staff. That action still may not be enough to make the property profitable.


24/7 Wall St. has created its list of the ten major daily papers that are most likely to fold or shut their print operations and only publish online. The properties were chosen based on the financial strength of their parent companies, the amount of direct competition that they face in their markets, and industry information on how much money they are losing. Based on this analysis, it is possible that eight of the fifty largest daily newspapers in the United States could cease publication in the next eighteen months. (Read: "The Race for a Better Read")

1. The Philadelphia Daily News. The smaller of the two papers owned by The Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, which recently filed for bankruptcy.

2. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has filed for Chapter 11. The paper may not make money this year even without the costs of debt coverage. The company said it made $26 million last year, about half of what it made in 2007. .

3. The Miami Herald, which has a daily circulation of about 220,000. It is owned by McClatchy, a publicly traded company which could be the next chain to go into Chapter 11.

4. The Detroit News is one of two daily papers in the big American city badly hit by the economic downturn. It is unlikely that it can merge with the larger Detroit Free Press which is owned by Gannett.

5. The Boston Globe is, based on several accounts, losing $1 million a week.

6. The San Francisco Chronicle. Parent company Hearst has already set a deadline for shutting the paper if it cannot make tremendous cost cuts.

7. The Chicago Sun Times is the smaller of two newspapers in the city. Its parent company, Sun-Times Media Group trades for 3 cents a share.

8. NY Daily News is one of several large papers fighting for circulation and advertising in the New York City area.

9. The Fort Worth Star Telegram is another one of the big dailies that competes with a larger paper in a neighboring market — Dallas.

An obit for the Rep? not quite yet

James V. DeLong wrote an interesting piece with a local connection on Tuesday in the American Magazine under the headline: Preparing the obituary. The mag, which has not been around very long itself, asked the question Can anyone arrest the decline?

Click on the headline if you want to read the entire story, but you won't find a reference to your favorite newspaper, the BJ. You should also know that the Canton Repository has been publishing seven days a week since the 1890s. Here's the lead:

In small-town Ohio in the early 1950s, the main link to the outside world was the Canton Repository newspaper. The radio had a role, as did the movies, and television was about to explode through the culture, but the newspaper had breadth and depth. It was the Repository that had the maps showing how the Marines fought out of the trap at Chongjin Reservoir, and it was the Repository that nurtured my unshakable view that an essential feature of a good newspaper is lots of comic strips.

The Repository was delivered daily in the late afternoon. Paperboys collected bundles of papers that were tossed off a truck at Sterling’s Drugstore downtown and showed an admirable skill at folding each into proper aerodynamic shape. Some rode special bikes, with a front wheel built small enough to accommodate a large basket which held the papers within easy reach to grab and throw. The boys also bore the collection risk—once a month they trudged their routes, punch cards in hand, ringing doorbells and recording the payments, or, since the town was poor, the excuses.

On Sundays, we added the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Pittsburgh was closer, but the lines of culture ran north and Pennsylvania was considered exotic. This was Indians and Browns territory, not Pirates and Steelers, and the papers were important parts of the identity.

The Repository still exists, circulation 66,812, and 86,357 on Sunday. GateHouse Media bought it in 2007 from the Copley Press, but Mr. Stock Market does not think much of GateHouse Media’s prospects, since the price of $20 per share in May 2007 has shrunk to 7 cents in March 2009, even worse than the 83 percent haircut taken by newspaper stocks generally in 2008. Mr. Market’s gloom seems warranted, since the company has $1.4 billion in debts and must include “intangible assets” and “goodwill” of over $1 billion to provide the balance on its balance sheet.

The state of newspapers as financial entities does not reflect their basic strengths as brands.

The Plain Dealer is the largest paper in Ohio and is part of Advance Publications, the empire of the Newhouse family that includes the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and a slew of business magazines. Its market penetration is impressive, as more than 75 percent of adults in the area read it on Sundays. Advance is privately owned, so its finances are unknown.

The immediate question is whether these institutions will survive into the next decade, or possibly even into next year. The answer is complicated. If phrased as: Will these and other newspapers continue to put content on newsprint and blanket their viewsheds? the answer is “no.” Some will continue in their present form, but many are in a downward spiral. The New York Sun just folded, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is in bankruptcy, the McClatchy chain has $40 million in operating income per quarter and debt service of $34 million, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is about to shut down or go online-only.The article continues

McClatchy to cut 1,600 jobs

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Newspaper publisher McClatchy Co. said Monday that it plans to eliminate 1,600 jobs, or 15 percent of its work force, as it contends with declining revenue and a deepening recession.

The company, which owns The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee and other properties, had said that it planned deep cost cuts this year, hoping to save between $100 million to $110 million, and slashed its dividend 90 percent.

But Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Pruitt said in a statement Monday that "given the worsening economy, we must do more."

The cost-control efforts come as McClatchy is faced with plunging ad revenues plaguing the entire publishing sector, as well as trying to recover $5.3 million owed by newspapers it had sold to companies that have recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

McClatchy also has its own debt worries. The company owed about $2.04 billion as of the end of 2008, stemming mainly from its 2006 acquisition of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain.

While the job cuts will not solve all McClatchy's troubles, the company said its cost-control efforts excluding severance and other benefit charges related to previous reductions led to a 14.4 percent drop in cash expenses for the fourth quarter.

The times they are a-changin’

By John Olesky (BJ 1969-96)
As Bob Dylan sang in his 1964 album that captured the spirit of social and political upheaval that characterized the 1960s, “The Times They Are a-changin’.”

The Feb. 7-21 trip to Siesta Key, off Sarasota, with Paula was my annual journey to the Sunshine State. I’ve taken one every February since my 1996 retirement from the Beacon Journal newsroom.

But Sea Castle, the cozy two-story collection of 10 attached buildings individually owned in Mom & Pop fashion, is gone. In its place is the $100 million Hyatt six-story complex with 1,900 to 2,900 square foot condos. “Fractional shares,” which look suspiciously like time-shares, started out for $135,700 to $206,400 for six weeks, but the sign on the still-uncompleted project now advertised $50,000 to $150,000 for undisclosed lengths of stays. And the late BJ printer Bill Gorrell's "Poor Bill's" rentals next door to Sea Castle were razed for something that looks like a cement-blocks concoction.

We rented a second-story apartment a block away, but 50 feet from the beach access walkway.

The times they are a-changin’.

From the time that my late wife Monnie and I began our month-long hiatus from Northeast Ohio winters, and through my journeys onto Siesta Key with Paula, I’ve had reunions with former Beacon Journal co-workers who live in Florida. But health reasons prevented us from seeing former Composing workers Terry Dray and wife Cecily, who live in Avon Park, and Dave and Gina White, who live in Venice; and former newsroom rewrite guru Don Bandy, who lives in Bradenton.

I caught a cold in Ohio three days before our flight from freezing and gave it to Paula about three days after we arrived in Florida. Paula wound up with bronchitis, so we had to cancel the scheduled get-together.

The times they are a-changin’.

But some things were the same. Such as:

-- Miles of daily walks on the Siesta Key beach.

-- Seeing alligators, armadillo, turkey vultures (getting ready for their flight to Hinckley?), hawks, egrets, deer, herons, feral pigs and squirrels in Myakka Lake Park.

-- Enjoying the sweet sounds of a dozen dulcimers (Appalachian musical instrument) in Snookhaven camp near Venice where motorcycle gangs mix with senior citizens.

-- Glorious Greek Festival food and interesting Greek dancers at St. Barbara’s Church in Sarasota.

-- Listening to country music in Phillipi Estate Park in Sarasota.

-- Hearing the blues at the Friendship community center, by former world-traveling pianist/singer Lyllette Jenkins-Wisner.

-- Enjoying a concert by the Suncoast Jazz Ambassadors Big Band in Payne Park auditorium near downtown Sarasota.

-- Art exhibited in tiny studios, large art centers and on major streets.

-- Admiring hundreds of manatees luxuriating in the warm waters pouring from the Tampa Electric power plant in Apollo Beach (Gulf of Mexico was too cold in February for the slow-moving critters).

-- What was left of a water-skiing show on Sarasota Bay (I had the wrong time for the start of it).

-- A romantic (naturally) Valentine’s Day dinner in Turtles Restaurant on Siesta Key.

We found new enjoyment in walking the 2.25-mile boardwalk in the Audubon Society’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples (off I-75 exit 111). The BJ’s travel/nature reporter, Bob Downing, had written about Corkscrew years ago and I filed it away in hopes of some day walking amid the thousands of cypress trees, and the alligators and birds. Thanks, Bob!

We took in the outdoor Ferraris & Other Exotic Cars display on upscale St. Armand’s Circle off downtown Sarasota, including one splendid example with a $1.2 million price tag (but it only got 11 miles per gallon, so we didn’t buy it), and the outdoor antique autos display in Venice, which included some of Henry Ford’s first products.

We made our first trip to Sarasota Jungle Gardens where we watched birds riding teeny bicycles on a wire, the show’s host putting a Madagascar cockroach in her mouth, and pink flamingos squawking and prancing energetically.

We did the obligatory imitative pose in front of a tall aluminum “Unconditional Surrender” sculpture on Sarasota Bay of a sailor and a nurse kissing emphatically, which itself mimics the famous New York City Times Square photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt marking V-E Day (for youngsters, the day that World War II ended in Europe because Germany surrendered).

The major attraction every year is Sarasota’s myriad cultural attractions and events. Every day we had a list of several things to do – music, food, art, animals, walks.

We had lunch on the water at Ft. Myers before we drove to Southwest Florida International Airport in that city for our flight home.

To wrap it up by quoting Bob Dylan from his “a-changin’ “ song:

“Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
For the times they are a-changin'.”

Click on the headline if you want to see photos of our trip. Or not.

'I Want My Rocky' evolves as news website

A website that Rocky Mountain News staffers developed to try to save their newspaper has evolved into a news webite. The story on the evolution of “I Want My Rocky.” is the centerpiece story on Poynter Online. Click on the headline to go to the Poynter centerpiece and be sure to scroll to the end of the story where you will find a dozen links to other Rocky stories.

Here’s the lead from the centerpiece:

Kevin Flynn, the former transportation reporter for the Rocky Mountain News, is unemployed. So how did he publish a news story Monday on a Good Samaritan who was ticketed for jaywalking? And why was he on deadline Tuesday night?

The home for Flynn's three stories since the Rocky closed on Friday is I Want My Rocky, a Web site created by Rocky employees in December to advocate saving the paper. They also envisioned the site as a gathering place for former Rocky employees if the paper ended up closing. And now, just days after the Rocky printed its final edition, I Want My Rocky is a nascent local news site, publishing and linking to the work of its former transportation, arts, and sports reporters.

"A lot of people are looking at it to launch what's next. We don't know what's next," said Steve Foster, a former assistant sports editor and one of the creators of I Want My Rocky.

Bosley tells why ASNE cancelled convention

Here's the word from BJ alum Scott Bosley via Joe Strupp at E&P:

The decision to cancel the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention, slated for next month in Chicago, will cost the editors' association at least several thousand dollars in deposit fees, according to Executive Director Scott Bosley.

He also said it is the first time the convention has been canceled since 1945 when the final year of World War II sparked a shutdown. The conventions have been held annually otherwise since 1923.

Bosley says the cancellation is not a sign that the journalism organization is in any fiscal trouble. "We are fairly steady financially," Bosley told E&P. "We are not flush, we have suffered along with the industry. We are always working to redefine what we can do for editors."

He said the convention, which would have been held at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago April 26-29, was simply not going to generate the kind of attendance it needed to be worthwhile.

"It really was based on the decision that a good number of top editors just could not come, and partly because they did not want to leave their newsrooms at this time," Bosley said. "We had a convention that we felt was really good and it was ready, but if enough people did not come, it would not have been worth it."

Bosley said President Barack Obama had been invited, but had not yet committed; the same with Gen. David Petraeus. Among those who had confirmed was broadcaster and syndicated columnist Garrison Keillor.

Bosley said, due to the ongoing financial problems in the industry, the convention was slated to have more workshop-type events and fewer general sessions. The focus was to be on four tracks: online, leadership, reinventing print, and small newspapers.

"It was an unusually busy schedule," he said. "It is not an easy thing for us to do, to cancel. It will cost us. You have guarantees at the hotels and things we have to negotiate our way through and we do not know if we will suffer a large penalty or not."

Bosley had no estimates on the amount of money ASNE will lose, but said it is at least "several thousand dollars." He also said the conventions usually provide a small source of revenue, but did not have specific amounts from past conventions.

Despite the lack of a convention, ASNE members will still vote on a board of directors and the organization will change presidents in April, with current president Charlotte Hall of The Orlando Sentinel stepping down, replaced by Martin Kaiser of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The organization also will vote on a name change from American Society of Newspaper Editors to American Society of News Editors: "That will broaden the potential base for membership."

Jim Romenesko: Newspaper obit writer

Linton Weeks on NPR.org, writes that Jim Romenesko has become a newspaper obituary writer — except he doesn't write obituaries of people, he chronicles the demise of American newspapers.

"It's Romenesko's job to cull through the news of the media industry and post stories of interest. Because of the acceleration of dead and dying dailies in the country, Romenesko's blog has turned into a scrolling roll call of bad news. He links to story after story describing the shifting journalistic landscape.

Here’s a sample from today:

> Columbus Dispatch lays off 45 newsroom staffers
> SacBee union: The "bad deal" we agreed to saves jobs
> Seattle Times editorial: Repackaging news isn't journalism
> An alternative to spending money on "retraining" journalists
> The Malcontent and other types who write to DC journalists
> A bad time for newspapers to undo effects of their Original Sin
> Weeks: Romenesko has become a newspaper obituary writer
> Boston Herald seeks to reduce its workforce by 20 employees
> Frederick News-Post to discontinue Monday print edition
> Ten ways public radio convinces you to give them money
> WPIX gives cameras to students, tells them to submit stories
> Claim: CNBCers don't like reporting bad news about parent GE

—And we steal this stuff from Romenesko

More links on the demise of Rocky

Here are some links to stories on the poignant loss of the Rocky Mountain News:

Chicago Tribune’s Johnathan Berlin, who worked at the Rocky Mountain News from late 2001 to 2005, shares 10 things he learned there.

"I've learned in every newsroom I've worked, but I came of age as a journalist at the Rocky,” Berlin writes. ‘I owe a significant debt to that wonderful place."

Joanne Kelley, who was a business reporter at the Rpckjy,. Is looking for a job, and she isn't sure what she will do next. She is still reeling from the strain of the paper's slow death.


John Diaz of San Francisco Chronicle and former Denver Post staffer, recalls competing against the Rocky in the 80s

“There was a time when I enjoyed the Rocky Mountain News' smallest failings. If it missed a good story that was in the Denver Post, I breathed a sigh of relief. If its carriers were a few minutes later or a few yards farther from the porch than their Post counterparts, it was a good day. Each time I saw someone choose the broadsheet Post over the tabloid Rocky at side-by-side news racks, I felt a little rush of smug satisfaction.Such was the ferocity of the last great American newspaper war.”


A New York Times story talks about a nn-subscriber picking up the last Rocky "for sentimental value"



Ex-Rocky editor John Temple says he won't stay on with The E.W. Scripps Co. and says he has not decided what he will do.

The Rocky published its last edition Friday. Scripps said the newspaper had lost $16 million last year and no viable buyer could be found.

This post expands slightly on links found at Poynter Online.

Be sure to check out the Rocky video

Our "Goodbye, Rocky" post on the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News included a link to Poynter Online which had several links on features about the closing. We urged all our viewers not to miss the video.

But it is worth a reminder. The film produced by Matthew Roberts and the multimedia staff of Rocky tells of the final days of the newspaper

Watch it here:

http://vimeo.com/3390739

Note from an oldtimer

Note from an oldtimer who shall be left nameless:

Just in case you weren't feeling too old today.
The people who are starting college this fall were born in 1989.
They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up.
Their lifetime has always included AIDS.
The CD was introduced two years before they were born.
They have always had an answering machine.
They have always had cable..
Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.
Popcorn has always been microwaved.
They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.
They don't know who Mork was or where he was from.
They never heard: 'Where's the Beef?', 'I'd walk a mile for a Camel ', or 'de plane Boss, de plane'.
McDonald's never came in Styrofoam containers.
They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter.
Pass this on to the other old fogies on your list.

P.S. Save the earth. It's the only planet with chocolate.