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.

Say goodbye to Rocky

Today was the last day of publication for the Rocky Mountain News. The Rocky isn't struggling financially any more than the Denver Post, says Rocky editor John Temple. "But its owner, the E.W. Scripps Co., sees losses in Denver worsening and little prospect that the business can be turned around, even in a one-newspaper town. That's why they decided to leave Denver, after running newspapers here for more than 100 years."

Reprinted below is the goodye message on the final edition of February 27, 2009
We also show the regular front page.

Columbia Journalism Review is collecting comments from staffers.

Poynter online has a number of links to fetures on the last day of publication. Don't miss the video.

Here also is a lnik to nice array of front pages from the Rocky

FINAL EDITION

Goodbye, Colorado

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to you today. Our time chronicling the life of Denver and Colorado, the nation and the world, is over. Thousands of men and women have worked at this newspaper since William Byers produced its first edition on the banks of Cherry Creek on April 23, 1859. We speak, we believe, for all of them, when we say that it has been an honor to serve you. To have reached this day, the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News, just 55 days shy of its 150th birthday is painful. We will scatter. And all that will be left are the stories we have told, captured on microfilm or in digital archives, devices unimaginable in those first days. But what was present in the paper then and has remained to this day is a belief in this community and the people who make it what it has become and what it will be. We part in sorrow because we know so much lies ahead that will be worth telling, and we will not be there to do so. We have celebrated life in Colorado, praising its ways, but we have warned, too, against steps we thought were mistaken. We have always been a part of this special place, striving to reflect it accurately and with compassion. We hope Coloradans will remember this newspaper fondly from generation to generation, a reminder of Denver's history -- the ambitions, foibles and virtues of its settlers and those who followed. We are confident that you will build on their dreams and find new ways to tell your story. Farewell -- and thank you for so many memorable years together.