Asheville AC-T closes printing plant

This report comes from Marvin Katz:

Spread across the bottom of the front page of today's Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times is a story bearing the headline AC-T press rolls last edition and the byline of AC-T publisher Randy Hammer. Curiously, the story doesn't appear on the paper's Web site.

It tells about changes "made necessary by the economy." The most significant is closing of the paper's printing plant yesterday, and movement of production to Gannett's plant in Greenville, S.C. That was announced last year and covered in a story yesterday, reproduced below.

The other changes involve cutting back to three sections from four on some days, eliminating the Sunday "Forum" section and moving the Sunday opinion pages to the A section and eliminating the classified section on Mondays and Tuesdays.

The story notes that "particularly frustrating" is the fact that while advertising is down, readership is up. The latest report from Scarborough Research shows readership in the Asheville metro area climbed to 74 percent in 2008, from 68 percent in 2007. Meanwhile, unique visitors to the paper's Web site have grown to 570,000 a month from 360,000.

The piece also notes that just 14 months ago, the AC-T put out the biggest paper in its history, weighing in at more than five pounds: "That our local economy could U-turn so dramatically from one Thanksgiving to the next is mind-boggling."

Here's the piece from yesterday's paper:

January 4, 2009
AC-T press rolls last edition=

FROM STAFF REPORTS

The last editions of the Asheville Citizen-Times printed at the newspaper's Sardis Road plant rolled off the presses Saturday night.

Beginning today, the newspaper will be printed at The Greenville News, a Gannett newspaper in Upstate South Carolina.

“Sardis was one of the first modern printing facilities that allowed newspapers to print remotely,” said Randy Hammer, president and publisher of the Citizen-Times.

“Under the leadership of Jim Burns, Pete Ryall, Kevin Arrington and Steve Koletnik, the folks at Sardis consistently printed newspapers and other products that scored some of the highest quality rankings in Gannett,” Hammer said.

The press began operation in late 1986 in a new 40,000-square-foot production and distribution facility on Sardis Road near Enka, replacing the press at the newspaper's main offices on O. Henry Avenue.

The downtown building is electronically linked to the plant, which cost $11 million.

The eight-unit, 600-ton offset press was manufactured by M.A.N.-Roland Co., a German firm. The Citizen-Times was owned by Multimedia at the time.

The press underwent a $3.5 million upgrade in 2007.

“It's sad to see the presses at Sardis shut down and so many people lose their jobs. But presses are expensive and sophisticated pieces of machinery to maintain,” Hammer said.

About 60 people lost their jobs with the closure of the printing plant, but many employees were offered — and accepted — jobs in Greenville.

“In this age of the Web and advanced technology, we will see more and more newspapers consolidate their printing operations in cities where the geography makes sense,” Hammer said.

McClatchy gives $190 million buyer more time

McCalthcy Co. hopes more time will translate into financing for the sale of 10 acres of its land next to the Miami Herald in Miami for $190 million.

In addition to giving the buyer a six-month extension, the newspaper company has unraveled the buyer’s first right of refusal on McClatchy’s separate waterfront parcel, home to the Miami Herald.

McClatchy (NYSE: MNI) has given buyer Citisquare Group until June 30 to close – extending the contract by six months. Citisquare Group can also extend the agreement until Dec. 31, by “increasing the termination fee payable to McClatchy should the deal fail to close.”

"We are pleased to reach an accommodation with Citisquare to preserve this valuable transaction,” said Gary Pruitt, McClatchy's chairman and CEO in a company statement.

Mark Siffin-led Maefield Development, a Citisquare partner, communicated to McClatchy the deal would close, according to the Dec. 30 press release.

[Source: South Florida Business Journal]

Kansan going online-only starting Jan. 10

The Kansas City Kansan – established in 1921 – is taking a bold step into the future on Jan. 10, when it will end its 87-year history as a print newspaper and switching to an entirely digital publication.

The Kansan will launch a revamped Web site on Jan. 7.

“I’ve been in this business for 30 years and it sounds cliché to say it, but printer’s ink runs through my veins,” said publisher Tim Larson. “The Kansan has been around for more than 80 years and I don’t know how many publishers, so its somber to think that I’m the last publisher to put out a print edition.”

The Jan. 10 issue will contain more on the history of the newspaper and a retrospective on some of its coverage from pages of the Kansan through nine decades of serving Wyandotte County.

Founded on Jan. 31, 1921, by U.S. Sen. Arthur Capper, the Kansan was for decades the only daily newspaper serving exclusively Kansas City, Kan. and the other towns of Wyandotte County.

Meanwhile, KansasCityKansan.com reaches nearly 7,000 local residents monthly in its current configuration.

The new KansasCityKansan.com Web site will offer greater opportunity for reader participation through comments and posting their own news and announcements. Businesses and civic organizations, for example, will be able to post their own press releases. Readers will find it easy to share community photos or their own stories and opinions.

“This is not going to be a newspaper turned into an online product,” Kansan General Manager Drew Savage said. “It’s going to have a completely different look.”

The format of the site will be more like a blog, making it easier for readers to scan through all the stories from a particular day and find the ones they wish to read more carefully.

Without the cumbersome tasks of page design and layout, and other duties associated with print, the online staff will be free to find more and varied stories to post online. Without press deadlines to contend with, the staff will be able to keep up a continual flow of news every day, publishing breaking news and information as it comes in.

Click on the headline to read the full story in the Kansan

HAPPY NEW YEAR

from

Helen and Harry Liggett in Akron, OH

Dayton TV camerman retires after 51 years

Bob "Scoop" Phillips, who at age 75 was the longest working active news photographer in Ohio, and perhaps in the industry, is retiring as chief photographer at WDTN-TV, Channel 2 News in Dayton.

Phillips, with Channel 2 for 51 years, said the decision was one of the hardest he has ever had to make.

"It is not easy after all this time," he said, his voice heavy with emotion. "I love this job. I love Channel 2 and I love the city of Dayton. It was a difficult decision, but the time has come."

Click on the headline to read an article by Dale Huffman in the Dayton Daily News

The SA Today

The SA Today

That's not a typo: We hear that the wind blew off the U off the USA Today's building in Virginia today.

McClatchy delays close of Miami land sale

NEW YORK The McClatchy Co. said on Tuesday that it is extending the closing date of the sale of its Miami property, Editor & Publisher reported today in a story by Jennifer Saba

The deal, which is expected to bring in $190 million, was originally expected to close at the end of this year. Because the buyers of the 10 acres of land adjacent to The Miami Herald are having trouble securing financing, McClatchy has postponed the date until June 30, 2009.

Citisquare Group paid McClatchy $10 million in a nonrefundable deposit. The company has the option of extending the closing date even further until Dec. 31, 2009 by increasing the termination fee to McClatchy should transaction not go through.

Under the new terms, Citisquare has relinquished its right of first refusal to purchase the Miami Herald building.

Gary Pruitt, CEO and chairman of McClatchy, said in a statement: "We are pleased to reach an accommodation with Citisquare to preserve this valuable transaction. Maefield Development, a Citisquare partner and developer of the land, has expressed confidence to us that the deal will close."

McClatchy's CFO Pat Talamantes said the delay of the transaction-the money from the sale will be used to pay down debt -- will not affect its credit agreement. "We expect to continue to have ample availability under our revolving line of credit to meet our funding requirements, including public bonds maturing in April 2009. Thereafter, the company has no other bank or bond debt maturities until June 2011," he said.

Jennifer Saba (jsaba@editorandpublisher.com) is E&P's associate editor

Career Transition Day set for January 10

Media Career Transition Day

A journalism career might take you to retirement, but if not… What's your Plan B?

You might not need one, but it's always good to be thinking ahead. So we've designed a day for all media employees (with a special focus on the 27 recently laid-off at The Plain Dealer).

PLACE: Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave. (free parking behind church, off Prospect)
DATE: Saturday, January 10, 2009
TIME: 7:45 a.m. doors open. Program starts 8:15 a.m., ends at 3:00 p.m.
MEALS: Breakfast, lunch and dessert reception included in entrance fee.

Professional career coaches on:

• Making your resume work for you\Finding transferable skills and strengths

• Marketing your talents and expertise

• Interviewing and negotiating a salary

One-on-one sessions (concurrent with panels):

• -- Bring your resume for a constructive critique

• Meet with career coaches to jumpstart your job search

Choose from panels on:

• Working for foundations and non-profits

• Public relations and marketing jobs

• Careers in graphics, photography and web design

• Higher education: Returning to college to teach or get another degree.

• Freelancing, online journalism and radio opportunities

• Post-Plain Dealer Success Stories: our colleagues show us the way ahead

Cost:
*** Free for the 50 (who were recently laid off from The Plain Dealer or who took buyouts)
*** $25 for Guild employees
*** $50 for all others (management, other media members, etc.)

Deadline to register is January 5.
This event is open to ALL current and former members of the media in Greater Cleveland. This event will fill up fast, so please register ASAP. Any profit will be donated to the Guild to help the PD people who were laid off.

PRE-REGISTRATION IS MANDATORY
Anyone registering at the event will be charged $10 extra.

You can register online with PayPal. If you don't have a PayPal account, you will be offered the opportunity to set one up when you register. Go to www.MediaTransitionDay.EventBrite.com OR make checks payable to Harlan Spector (at The Plain Dealer) and send it to him there. A schedule of speakers will soon be posted to: http://tinyurl.com/62fxp3

FOR INFORMATION: Call Harlan Spector at 216-999-4543 or Regina Brett at 216-932-6234.

Kent State shootings voted top Ohio story

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The National Guard's deadly shooting of students at Kent State University during a Vietnam War protest tops a list of Ohio news events of the last 75 years.

The Ohio Newspaper Association asked visitors to a Web site to rank 75 major news events from 1933 through 2007 as part of the trade group's 75th anniversary. The Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970 left four students dead and nine wounded.

Coming in second was the 1969 moon walk by Wapakoneta's Neil Armstrong, followed by Ohio's mourning of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Jesse Owens winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games and the blizzard of 1978.

Rounding out the list was Ohio joining the war effort after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, followed by the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, which killed Akron's Judith Resnik, the 1974 tornado that leveled Xenia, the Cleveland Indians winning the 1948 World Series and the 2003 blackout.

The list was based on 316 votes.

Cincy Enquirer to cut days it runs classified

The Cincinnati Enquirer will cut the number of days it runs classified ads, switch to a narrower page-format and condense some of its sections in an effort to reduce costs as advertisers spend less.

In a Sunday front-page letter to readers, Cincinnati Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan detailed the steps the daily paper plans to make in order to use less newsprint and ink, its second-largest expense. She cited difficult economic conditions for the changes, which are effective today.

Those include the elimination of traditional classified advertising on Mondays and Tuesdays. Its Life section will move behind the Local section on Mondays through Thursdays and will be renamed. The editorial page will move to the front section of the paper, and the Sunday television guide will be combined with Life and Travel sections. The daily television grids will be reduced to include only evening programming of the major broadcast stations.

Buchanan also said the Enquirer will be making a switch to a narrower page size in March, also in an effort to use less paper and ink.

The format changes come on the heels of December job cuts at the Cincinnati Enquirer, as well as across other newspapers owned by parent Gannett Co. Prior to the December layoff, 60 Enquirer employees left the paper as part of a voluntary severance plan announced for Gannett’s newspaper division in August. Gannett has said it expects revenue to fall 8 percent from 2007.

Movin’ on up after leaving the BJ

Former Beacpn Journal reporters are moving up in the social world. Their daughters were among the 44 debutantes listed with a story on the 106th Charity Bll of the Women’s board of Akron Cjhildren’s Jhospital at Goodyear Hall.

Among the debutantes were:

Grace Etheridge Williamson of Akron, daughter of Mark Aaron Williamson and Mary Ethridge Williamson. Mother was former BJ business writer Mary Ethridge.

Alanna Montgomery Gippin of Akron, daughter of Judge Robert Gippin and Susan Smith Gippin. Mother was former BJ reporter Susan Smith.

Alyssa Marie Pupino of Fairlawn, daughter of Dr. Sam and Holly Pupino.
Holly formerly did Beautiful Things for the Community Extra sections.

Debt from Knight Ridder now junk-bond status

When McClatchy bought the former Knight Ridder papers in 2006, it paid $4.5 billion and took on $2 billion in debt. That debt is now rated at junk-bond status and shares of the company (NYSE:MNI) have fallen more than 90 percent from their 52-week high of $13.31 per share on Dec. 26, 2007. As of Friday’s close, McClatchy was at 81 cents a share, giving it a market capitalization of $66.8 million. And that’s an improvement from its all-time low it hit on Christmas Eve. No one thinks McClatchy is on the verge of bankruptcy filing, but the company’s financials are hardly sound.

* The parting out will accelerate: Much like you do with an old car that is beyond repair, the industry will begin to see if the sum of the parts is worth more than the whole. When McClatchy quietly put The Miami Herald up for sale earlier this month, it was a clear example of how far this industry has fallen. Once considered one of the flagship papers of the Knight Ridder chain, the Herald had been such a low performer in both chains for so many years and that now the paper’s primary value is considered to be in its prime waterfront real estate. Expect chains to attempt to spin off more individual properties to shore up the balance sheet. However, few buyers will materialize. And the lack of liquidity has little to do with it. After all, it’s cheaper to wait and buy after the bankruptcy. Anyone at 400 West Seventh Street who still harbors the fantasy of the Basses riding to rescue in fit of civic altruism should remember this.

[Source: :Dallas-Fort Worth PegasusNews.com]

NY Times Op-Ed features Ted Gup's Christmas story

Mysterious benefactor “B. Virdot,” some of the checks he sent and letters received

Ted Gup, former BJ reporter who is professor of journalism at Case Western Reserve University, has written a beautiful Op-Ed piece in the New York Times about a mysterious benefactor who sent checks to desperate residents of Canton at the height of the Depression. The piece is headlined: Hard Times, a Helping Hand

The gifts made The Canton Repository’s front page on Dec. 18, 1933. The headline read: “Man Who Felt Depression’s Sting to Help 75 Unfortunate Families: Anonymous Giver, Known Only as ‘B. Virdot,’ Posts $750 to Spread Christmas Cheer.”

The benefactor we learn as the tale unfolds was Gup’s grandfather, Samuel J. Stone..

Gup writes:

Down through the decades, the identity of the benefactor remained a mystery. Three prosperous generations later, the whole affair was consigned to a footnote in Canton’s history. But to me, the story had always served as an example of how selfless Americans reach out to one another in hard times. I can’t even remember the first time I heard about Mr. B. Virdot, but I knew the tale well.

Then, this past summer, my mother handed me a battered old black suitcase that had been gathering dust in her attic. I flipped open the twin latches and found a mass of letters, all dated December 1933. There were also 150 canceled checks signed by “B. Virdot,” and a tiny black bank book with $760 in deposits.

My mother, Virginia, had always known the secret: the donor was her father, Samuel J. Stone. The fictitious moniker was a blend of his daughters’ names — Barbara, Virginia and Dorothy. But Mother had never told me, and when she handed me the suitcase she had no idea what was in it — “some old papers,” she said. The suitcase had passed into her possession shortly after the death of my grandmother Minna in 2005.

I took the suitcase with me to our log cabin in the woods of Maine, and there, one night, began to read letter after letter. They had come from all over Canton, from out-of-work upholsterers, painters, bricklayers, day laborers, insurance salesmen and, yes, former executives — some of whom, I later learned, my grandfather had known personally.

Click on the headline to read the full story in the New York Times.Gup tells of his grandfather's own struggles that prompted his spirit of giving. There also are other photos of him and the family, the bank book and letters. . Click on the photo above to enlarge for a better view.

Footnote: Gup has been named chair of the Journalism Department and professor of journalism at Emerson College in Boston beginning in the Fall of 2009.

Knight Ridder's Alvah Chapman dies

MIAMI -- Alvah H. Chapman Jr., a Knight Ridder executive, third-generation newspaperman and former Miami Herald president and CEO, died Thursday at 87.

Chapman spent a traditional family Christmas Eve at his Coconut Grove home, reading the Bible with his wife, Betty, their two daughters and several grandchildren, then succumbed to pneumonia on Christmas Day.

He was afflicted with Parkinson's disease, suffered strokes in recent years and broke a hip in March.

Georgia-born and Citadel-educated, Chapman brought his family to Miami in 1960. He evolved into a devoted and energetic champion of his adopted hometown and became the unifying force behind scores of civic endeavors.

Chapman came to Miami as company patriarch James L. Knight's executive assistant, quickly moving up the ranks to become the Herald's general manager and president. From 1976-1989, he was CEO and chairman of the newspaper company Knight Ridder, the now-defunct corporate parent of the Herald and the Akron Beacon Journal.

Former Herald publisher David Lawrence Jr. said Chapman ''cared deeply about good journalism.''

Click on the headline to read a four-take obituary in the Miami Herald. Or Google other sources including one by the McClatchy Washington Bureau.

Geewax joins NPR as senior business editor

Marilyn Geewax, who has covered the national economy from the Cox Newspapers Washington bureau, joined National Public Radio’s national desk on December 15 as the new senior business editor.

Cox is shutting its DC bureau.

“After 24 years with Cox, it’s weird to be leaving,” said Geewax. “But I’m really excited about NPR.”

Geewax was the national economics correspondent for Cox Newspapers’ Washington Bureau. Before coming to Washington in 1999, she worked for the Cox flagship paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, first as a business reporter and then as a columnist and editorial board member.

Before coming to Atlanta, she was a business reporter with the Beacon Journal. She began her career as a general assignment reporter for the Poughkeepsie (NY) Journal.
.
In 2004, Marilyn earned a master’s degree at Georgetown University, where she focused on international economic affairs. During 1994 and 1995, she studied economics and international relations at Harvard as a Nieman Fellow. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from The Ohio State University.

From 2001 to 2006, she taught a business journalism class as an adjunct professor at George Washington University.

Geewax grew up in the Youngstown area and now lives in Chevy Chase, MD.

And here's an email just received from Marilyn:

After seven years with the ABJ, and 24 years with Cox News, I am leaving newspapers. Yikes! Here’s what happened:

After I left Akron in 1985, I went to work for the Cox-owned Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I was a business reporter and then editorial writer there, before moving in 1999 to the Cox Washington bureau as the national economics correspondent.

This past August, it became clear the Washington bureau would soon be closing (the company announced it would sell off 10 of its 17 papers, and hinted the end-was-near for the bureau). Given the way newspapers have been shutting down bureaus, I figured I’d better look for something else.

I started talking to NPR in late August about becoming a business editor here in the Washington headquarters. These things always take a long time…and that was fortunate for me. I stayed with Cox long enough to get the buyout, and then started here on Dec. 15. I have lots to learn about radio, but it has been fun so far. My new email is mgeewax@npr.org.

Merry Christmas! Marilyn


Click here for earlier blog posts on Marilyn.

Feagler's Coffee Shoppe was a fake

When Dick Feagler announced at the top of the Forum section front last Sunday that the end of the year would bring the end of his long-running column, disappointment from his many fans was almost palpable. Most of the people I talked to last week, no matter why they had called, noted how much they are going to miss him. That's true of a lot of us.

But a lower-grade disappointment was also evident in the wake of Feagler's acknowledgment that the coffee shop conversations that had become a staple of his commentary were not quite the way he has presented them. The "Coffee Shoppe," as he described it, does not exist. The conversations he recounted were portrayals of real conversations with real people, but had rarely happened as he related them: a bunch of guys sitting around a coffee shop.

Blog Note: Feagler wrote a column for a while for the Beacon Journal.

C;lick on the headline to read the explanation by Ted Diadiun, the PD ombudsman.

Click here to read Feagler’s columns

No kidding? Job cuts listed as top news

The record number of jobs cut was the top news industry story in Joe Strupp’s annual list in Editor & Publisher.

“Three years ago, this was the top industry story of the year when some 2,000 newspaper jobs were lost in 2005, Strupp writes. “This year, Gannett cut that many in December alone, after slashing 1,000 others in August. Then there is McClatchy with two rounds of cuts, totaling 2,500 jobs; Tribune slashing more than 1,000; and various other small dailies and chains dropping staff here and there. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. saw more than 300 buyouts, while more than 100 jobs were lost each at The Washington Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Newsday and others.”

Strupp notes that the U.S. Department of Labor estimates some 21,000 newspaper industry jobs disappeared this year.

Strupp concludes:

“Somehow, newspaper owners continue to think that the way to handle economic downturns is to make their product worse be eliminating its most important asset, people. But with fewer reporters to dig up news as newspapers transition to the Web their content is going to look more and more like everything else online, limited and poorly reported.”

You can click on the headline to read the rest of the list, but be warned that it is a pretty dull list.

Retired stereotyper Bob Brown dies

Blog Note: Bob Brown was a retired Beacon Journal stereotyper.

Robert (Bob) L. Brown, Sr., 81, went to be with Jesus on December 17th, 2008.

He was born in Weston, West Virginia June 8th, 1927, and was a resident of Kenmore most of his life. He was a veteran of World War II, and a member of the Kenmore Masonic Lodge. He spent numerous years working in Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, and took pride in being a positive influence in the lives of all he touched. He was a former member of Kenmore United Methodist Church, and a loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

Bob was preceded in death by his wife of 60 years, Alice Brown; parents, Basil Brown and Thelma McCoy; sisters, Betty DeMarco and Jenneth Platt. He is survived by daughter and son-in-law, Rebecca and Roger Terrill of Burbank, Ohio; sons and daughters-in-law, Dennis and Lorene Brown of Akron, Ohio, Glenn and Terry Brown of Clinton, Ohio, Dale and Michelle Brown of Barberton, Ohio, and Bob II and Debi Brown of Knoxville, Tennessee. He also leaves behind 15 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at Schlup-Pucak Funeral Home on Kenmore Blvd. Family will receive friends from 1 to 2 p.m. on Monday, December 22, 2008, where funeral services will begin at 2 p.m. Interment to follow at Greenlawn Cemetery, Rev. Max Beery of Firestone Park United Methodist Church officiating.
[Beacon Journal, Akron, OH,Saturday, December 20, 2008, page B6, col. 3]

Seattle Times tells 500 to take week off

With a financial crunch rapidly approaching, the struggling Seattle Times Co. told some 500 management and non-union employees at its flagship Seattle Times newspaper today that they would each have to take a one-week unpaid furlough by the end of February to help the company raise as much as $1 million.

The mandatory furlough comes on top of three rounds of layoffs at the Times in the last 12 months, including a reduction of 150 jobs this month. The company is also seeking to raise cash by selling five acres of downtown real estate and its Blethen Maine newspaper chain. The Times Co. owes its lenders at least $91 million and is being pressed by a banking consortium led by Bank of New York Mellon to sell both the Maine papers and real estate in South Lake Union to pay down the debt.

“There are very few areas remaining in which we can pursue necessary savings,” Times senior vice president Alayne Fardella said in a memo to Times staffers. “However, we must continue to take steps to offset our dire economic situation.”

Some top photos of 2008

Check out some or the top news photos of 2008. Click on the headline for a link to them provided by the BJ's Bob DeMay via his new blog for news ph0tographers.