MediaNews Group executives Dean Singleton and Jody Lodovic sent a year-end memo to staff last week. The execs touted a few achievements...Such as being less bad on the advertising side:
While advertising revenue has been severely challenged, your performance has been near the top of the industry throughout 2009. For the three-month period ended September, for example, your advertising revenue declined 24% as compared to the industry decline of 28.2%.And staying out of bankruptcy court:
We have been working closely with our banks to restructure our debt and position MediaNews Group to execute its strategies and lead our newspapers into a positive future. Yes, we believe newspapers have a bright future! We are near agreement on the terms of a restructuring plan which we expect will be completed toward the end of the first quarter of 2010. Upon completion, MediaNews expects to have a manageable level of debt, and we look forward to working with each of you to take your newspapers into a changing but exciting future.They offered some praise of the shrunken newsrooms as well:
While we, like others, have had no choice but to trim news staffs, we have tried to consolidate infrastructure to preserve reporting staff when possible. And with hard work and creativity, your newsrooms have re-invented themselves and continue to do excellent journalism.But what staffers wanted to hear about was anything to do with future layoffs, hiring freezes or furloughs. On that front, the executives offered positive thinking but few reassurances:
As we near the end of 2009, you may have questions regarding annual reviews, 401(k) contributions, health care benefits, and future furloughs, etc. While it is our hope and desire to reinstate Company-wide salary reviews and 401(k) contributions as soon as possible and avoid future furloughs, it is premature to make those decisions.The full memo is here.
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It appears to this reader that the two honchos at medianews would be better off having zero communication with their employees. They never appear to get it right. From their failed memo to staff on their on line projects, to their no layoffs announcement a ways back, etc. How about you get your comapany out of debt. Put decent products on the street. Treat employees right. Hire managers who know how to run a newsroom, advertising staff, and communicate. Now, that would be a welcome change.
Maybe I am being to hard on the boys from Denver. It would be curious to see how they have fared versus their last few memos to the staff. If memory is mostly accurate it isn't well.
Yawn.
I didn't read it very carefully but I didn't see any typos. That has to count for something.
At least the picture with the suspenders has been updated. How's that for a positive spin?
I believe these types of memos are taught in Management 101. All they did by sending this note is to try and manage the impression that all is swell, and that Media News is heading toward nirvana. These people should work for Hollywood...they could manage some of the more damaged careers by trying to peddle this crap.
exactly....all spin. all spin and PR.
Do you ever wonder what would happen if instead of all the happy talk about peripheral issues, Dino just came out with a memo that said look, if we're ever going to be relevant again, we need to cover the heck out of the news.
Let's not talk about salary or benefits until we see if we can turn this around. We're going to get the mediocrities like Lambert out of the way and do what we can to help you do a good job.
Maybe we'll even risk a little capital to add some reporters to try and gain back some of what we've lost. We'll get rid of some of the worthless middle management layers and put boots on the ground.
Would that work in making people feel better? Most journalists are not in the business to get rich.
Poster at 7:5...you are exactly right...makes all the sense in the world which is why they won't do it. Why show class and substance when you can spin bullshit with impunity.
Yeah, how bout getting rid of those sups who all they know how to do is curse at and belittle reporters, and their writing skills are less than a 5th graders. i.e FG
Working for medianews is like attending preschool. Except, the teachers usually have a plan.
The reality is Singleton is no different from the countless other newspaper managers who've coasted through this industry for the last 40 years, driving their then-secure positions into the ground. The history of small papers in this country is a history of incompetence, cronyism, employee-gouging and a general race to the bottom. Look at Gannett's business model, which was to buy one small paper in a two-paper town, run the competitor out of business through ruthlessly slashing costs and quality, then jacking up ad rates once they had a monopoly. What they learned in the process was that quality of the product was nearly meaningless. No one should be surprised that MediaNews et al reached the same conclusion.
However, I don't know where they learned the willful ignorance of "Yes, we believe newspapers have a bright future!"
You nattering nay-sayers are going to be eating the crow you rode in on when the economy turns around and the newspapers, lean and mean survivors of the recession, come roaring back.
Roaring back? Are you on medication? After a recession they use to come roaring back driven to a large degree by classified advertising. Do you think that is coming back or that newspapers will get their share of online? National advertising isn't going to return to glory years and major retail is headed south. Now local retail advertising has a shot but newspapers don't care about it and aren't set up to capture the opportunity. The only thing roaring out of medianews is the drivel from Denver.
Can drivel roar?
Don't you hear it?
Why will they come roaring back after the recession, they have been slowly dying since about 2000.
The recession just magnified problems most papers already did not know how to fix.
The end of the recession will temper the bleeding, but right now it looks like the business model has to change.
Let me see if I have this right. Newspapers are losing circulation and nobody believes it will return in the traditional sense. Most newspapers lose money on each sub and the cost of delivery won't be going down. As circulation dwindles, it becomes tougher to have the economics make sense. Core newspaper readers will pay more than ten dollars a month for the product, yet, newspapers continue to diminish their own worth by charging little for delivery. Advertising, as earlier stated in other comments, is not returning and classified will disappear. Newspapers can't compete online with the people who know what they are doing and the economics have dictated a less relevant news operation that continues to be diminished. It seems that the barrier to enter the news biz has been torn down and newspapers haven't quite figured it out yet. As much as I enjoy them, I am preparing for a print exit and not in the very long term. Hope I am incorrect.
Merry Christmas and a healthy 2010 to all.
No, it's going to come back, you see. People want newspapers and they're waiting to get their jobs back so they can afford subscriptions. When they get jobs, and the money to subscribe, then advertisers will return, and some of that money will go toward rehiring people who got laid off, or keeping the people who were not laid off during the recent tough times. It's simple economics.
Thanks 1:44, it now makes perfect sense. I feel much better.
Thanks, 2:44, though maybe your not convinced. Just be patient. The future of newspapers is brighter than today, even if its not so good today. You just have to wait out the economy, like before. There's been newspapers for more than 100 years, even the civil war, so they'll be around for at least that long still in the future, because of the economy.
Thank you again...I feel so much better. May I live so long!
2:02, sort of a moronic comment. There have been papers in this country for more than 200 years, but nothing lasts forever. There were dinosaurs for 50 million years.
Roaring back? Lean and mean? I thought Steve Lambert wasn't allowed to post here.
my guess is that his comments were a bit tongue in cheek...I hope.
You see, that's the problem in a nut's shell. Righting off newspapers as being "dinosaurs" for so long makes all of us look like we don't believe in our own past, much less present or future. If there's one thing we should do its not calling ourselves "dinosaurs." If we think that way so will the public. It's really all about experience, especially future experience, and attitude.
you are so right...no dinasours here...only cosmic genius at the helm of these forward, creative thinking, nimble, and brilliant institutions. how anyone could believe otherwise is just stunning...simply stunning.
singleton appears to be the king of newspaper clowns.
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