slow liquidation

Slate's Jack Shafer writes about the possible demise of the Boston Globe and other big city dailies, here.

He references Phillip Meyer, who first recognized the potential demise of the newspaper industry in The Vanishing Newspaper and again addressed the subject last year in AJR. A newspaper's monetary worth is largely measured in good will, he theorizes. And when the newspaper engages in a process of slow liquidation (the late Molly Ivins had it so right), well, that good will erodes along with the advertising revenue. I call it hesitation cuts.

From Shafer's post:

"Slow liquidation" shows up in the winnowing process at many local and regional dailies today: fewer reporters, fewer comics, fewer sections, fewer features, smaller pages, smaller news hole, and higher home delivery and newsstand prices.

Writing again last year in AJR, Meyer plotted an "elite newspaper" strategy for the slow liquidators. His plan is no resurrection prayer for dying dailies, but it makes more sense than running a newspaper down, down, down until it has one subscriber paying $5 million for home delivery, and then he dies.

Meyer thinks newspapers should accept that their mass audience is drifting away. (In the most recent reporting period, Globe circulation was down almost 14 percent over the previous year.) They should accept that non-news readers have stopped reading dailies, accept that newspapers can no longer satisfy everybody all the time with an "all-you-can-eat" buffet, and concentrate on publishing content of higher value. And they should "peel back" to their core functions of news, investigation, analysis, and interpretation "in a print product that appears less than daily, combined with constant updating and reader interaction on the Web."

hesitation cuts

Aggregation or aggrevation:

Re the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Reuters reports that Hearst will make a decision next week whether to "name a buyer for the daily newspaper, close its print edition or shut it down entirely."

Re the SF Chronicle: WaPo and others have reported that the union has agreed to concessions that "will allow the Chronicle to lay off union employees without considering seniority, which means it can more easily cut higher-paid employees." The union ratification is set for today.

Re MediaNews and Gannett: The same site reports that "unions at Gannett and MediaNews may eventually have to decide on whether to accept unpaid furloughs next quarter."

Re McClatchy: HuffPo reports that "about 175 employees at the Miami Herald will lose their jobs, and most of the remaining full-time staff will see their salaries reduced as the newspaper tries to cut costs amid plunging advertising revenue."

Molly Ivins had it so right. bk

- more -

Back to thirty:

The LA Times reports that the Christian Science Monitor will become the nation's first newspaper to drop its daily print edition in favor of its online "treeless" edition. A sign of the times, or a prudent economic move? You have to hope that the 5 million online page-views will be able to support a robust reporting staff and that the journalism will remain the same quality that earned the paper seven Pullitzers. But still. It's a sign of the times.

In response, former capstoner Timi Gould, who once had "latimes.com" in her email address, wonders: "IS online the answer? Are online ad sales more profitable? Are online articles the same quality as those that would run in the paper? Is newspaper page layout and design a thing of the past?"

To which my answer is, well, I don't have one. But I do have some questions of my own.

For example, in Monday's column about the increasing polarization of the news media, Howard Kurtz wonders whether Fox's Sean Hannity and MSNBC's Keith Olberman are "watching the same presidential race, or even living in the same country?"

He continues: "Prime-time viewers of Fox News and MSNBC get vastly different perspectives on the campaign that sometimes approach mirror images. This goes well beyond the hosts' political views to the booking of guests and the way stories are framed, pumped up and sometimes ignored. In that sense, the programs reflect the increasing polarization of the media world, where columnists, strategists, bloggers and radio talkers have built thriving careers catering to those who already agree with them."

Here's what worries me: as daily newspapers (and the straight-ahead journalism that they support) shrink, the growth industry appears to be opinion, either via cable or the blogosphere. Not sure that makes for an informed citizenry. Full disclosure: I am an Olberman junkie. Still, I recognize that folks like him and Hannity are preaching to the choir. But. Does everyone?

Finally, this is so preposterous, I can't even comment. According to a piece in USA Today last week, Media News Group CEO Dean Singleton, whose media company has presided over the near-dismantling of our beloved Mercury News, spoke to the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, suggesting that newspapers consider outsourcing many of their daily operations.

Really?!

"One thing we're exploring is having one news desk for all of our newspapers in MediaNews ... maybe even offshore," said Singleton, whose company owns 54 newspapers, several in the Bay Area, and who may well be the poster child for Molly Ivins' apochryphal comment about newspapers committing suicide.

Of course, that's just my opinion (Yep, I'm doing just what I worry about. See above.) bk

and again.

It continues to baffle: The idea that when you reduce the quality of a product -- in this case, news -- more people will buy it and you will make more money. To paraphrase the late, great Molly Ivins: "It's not that newspapers are dying that pisses me off. It's that they are committing suicide." Clearly.

McClatchy newspapers just announced it will trim its workforce by 10 percent -- or roughly 1,150 full time positions -- in the face of advertising revenues that had decreased by 17.8 percent this past year.

According to the press release issued by the company: "It is painful to announce these staff reductions, but the continued restructuring of our company is necessary given the relentless economic downturn and its impact on our business," McClatchy Chairman and CEO Gary Pruitt said in a release. "But it is also part of a strategic vision of becoming a hybrid print and online media company. McClatchy is committed to remaining a healthy, profitable company positioned to meet current challenges."

Photo courtesy of Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman, via Associated Press. Molly Ivins in 2006.