One desk, many papers

The universal copy desk is gaining popularity as a cost-savings device for the big chains. Gannett recently penned a memo outlining a plan to create a single copy desk to serve four regional newspapers in New Jersey. The company also signaled that it might merge the news desks of several newspapers in Indianapolis, according to Gannett Blog.

Newspaper bankruptcy watch: Chicago Sun-Times

What's wrong with Chicago?

Sun-Times Media Group, owner of the Chicago Sun-Times, filed for bankruptcy protection today, the New York Times reports:

The company said it would continue to operate its newspapers and online sites while it focuses on further improving its cost structure and stabilizing operations...

The company operates 59 newspapers and their corresponding online sites, including several papers in the suburban Chicago area.

Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, which is the Sun-Times main source of competition, filed for bankruptcy last December.

Pew surveys online journalists

A study from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism has found online journalists to be generally more optimistic about the future of journalism than their counterparts in print but also worried about a loosening of basic standards. From the study:

Overall, the online journalists surveyed are less likely to think journalism is headed in the “wrong direction” than are journalists from legacy media. They are also more confident than they are pessimistic that online news will find a self-sustaining revenue model.

-snip-

Those journalists surveyed, who come largely from websites linked to legacy media, also believe the Web is changing the fundamental values of the journalism—mostly for the worse. In particular, they are worried about declining accuracy, in part due to the emphasis online that news organizations are putting on speed and breaking news.

NYT to cancel City Section

As part of a cost-savings plan that includes salary cuts to staffers, the New York Times has plans to drop the stand-alone City Section, the New York Observer reports. Meanwhile, the paper's citizen-blog project, The Local, lives on.

Zell's Brazilian bailout plan

This comes via LA Observed...

Tribune Co.-owner Sam Zell is seeking redemption (and cash) in the Brazilian housing market. From the Wall Street Journal:

Real estate tycoon Sam Zell, trying to restore his stature as an astute investor after his disastrous buyout of Tribune Co., has surfaced as an unlikely player in a controversy in Brazil over affordable housing.

Mr. Zell has been focusing much of his time on his global real-estate investments since the bankruptcy filing by Tribune late last year. His real-estate private-equity firm, Equity International Properties, is trying to capitalize on what many analysts say is a pent-up demand for housing in Brazil through its 19% stake in homebuilder Gafisa SA.

The rest of the story is apparently behind a paywall, but here's the link anyway.

Taking a few days off

The Associated Press today lists almost 100 daily newspapers that have cut one or more days of publication in the last year. The list, which is broken down by state, shows Illinois with the highest number of papers dropping days, followed closely by Ohio and California. (h/t Romenesko)

Buyouts at the Chronicle*

Freelance journalist Frances Dinkelspiel at Ghost Word has a partial list of journalists taking the buyout from the San Francisco Chronicle. Arts and music, science and the copy desk appear to be the hardest hit. The list includes music writer Joel Selvin, Washington bureau reporter Zachary Coile and editorial cartoonist Tom Meyer. About 80 people have applied for the buyout, Dinkelspiel reports, and more layoffs are likely.

*Quirky, political, and hyperlocal don't seem to have been a successful recipe for the Chron, according to a story by Richard Pérez-Peña in the New York Times.

Newspapers in Europe

The New York Times takes a look at what European media companies are doing to boost profits. Some have succeeded, some have failed.

Kaus: Right time for the right (leaning) paper

Mickey Kaus thinks the time is right for a new newspaper in Los Angeles, one that isn't afraid to take a hard look at who the mayor is dating.

Infection detection

A team of Canadian researchers has uncovered a vast spy network based mostly in China that used malicious software to track and intrude on computer systems used by the Dalai Lama, among others. It a sign of things to come as we hook our lives into the electronic grid.

From the New York Times:

Their sleuthing opened a window into a broader operation that, in less than two years, has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices, as well as the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York.

The researchers, who have a record of detecting computer espionage, said they believed that in addition to the spying on the Dalai Lama, the system, which they called GhostNet, was focused on the governments of South Asian and Southeast Asian countries.

A target-rich environment

It starts with something like this:

"Now, when I was a working journalist 25 to 30 years ago, before I got a completely unrelated job in either management or academia, an editor and I had a completely irrelevant conversation that I'm only telling you as an excuse to mention I once was a reporter.

...and ends with something like this:

"Another reason newspapers are dying is they don't try new things! Now here's a list of all the new things they tried that didn't work."

Read Paul Dailing's excoriation of the I-Predicted-the-Death-of-Newspapers crowd here.

(h/t Media Nation)

The taint of AIG

Anger over the retention bonuses paid to executives at the bailed-out AIG is now spilling over onto its subsidiaries. Auto-insurance division 21st Century Insurance is nervous enough that the company's president today sent out a pre-emptive damage control letter to customers. He even uses boldface type:

It is important to clarify that although the insurance companies affiliated with the 21st Century Insurance brand are subsidiaries of AIG, they have not accessed or needed any of the Federal Reserve borrowings to fund their operations. Nor have they received any capital contribution from any AIG company to support their operations. 21st Century Insurance is an organization of 6,500 employees whose mission is to deliver outstanding value and service for your auto insurance needs - a mission we are striving to achieve every day.

Read the full memo here.

I don't know if people are canceling policies over the bonuses, but I have seen a few calls for boycotting the company (such as this one).

Four in the afternoon

When President Obama talks about transparency, the courts listen ... Marc Cooper pans CNN's Ed Henry for his self-serving windbaggery ... Snuggie sales must be plummeting ... Tensions mount at condemned Tucson Citizen

Sun metro editor takes a government job

San Bernardino Sun Metro Editor George Watson has agreed to take a job as chief of staff for San Bernardino County Supervisor Neil Derry. The Board of Supervisors still has to vote on the appointment to make it official.

The position opened up last week when Derry's previous chief of staff, Jim Irwin, got himself arrested for allegedly lying about a trip he took to New York courtesy of a Rancho Cucamonga housing developer who was trying to make nice with board. While in New York, the developer lavished Irwin with gifts - a Rolex watch, fancy meals, prostitutes. Irwin allegedly lied about those as well.

Derry had kind things to say about Watson, who's currently on leave from the Sun:

"George is a top-tier individual," Derry said. "He's ethical. He's highly educated. He's professional. He works very hard. I think he will be a tremendous asset to not only the third district, but the county as a whole."

Will newspapers hit the print button?

Maybe newspapers subscribers really will embrace the concept of becoming their own "editor and publisher" and will gladly print out their customized newspaper at home via a special printer given/sold to them by the local paper (the MediaNews concept).

But that seems about as likely to succeed as a McDonald's franchise that offered to deliver to your home a special microwave and the raw ingredients to make a Big Mac. Customers may like to hear "have it your way," but they also want to be sure the burger they get tastes and looks like a Big Mac and they still want someone else to prepare it for them.

(Yes, I'm comparing customized newspapers to fast food. It seems an appropriate metaphor.)

But what if the newspaper had a massive digital printer that would allow it to customize a paper for subscribers, a paper that would still be delivered to the subscribers doorstep - potentially several times a day - and would still have all the dependable markings and layout of the paper they subscribed to?

The Dutch firm Océ has unveiled a printer that could make this possible. As Martin Langeveld at Nieman points out, this would require an investment by executives who want reporters to buy their own pens and notebooks at a time when conventional wisdom-makers are calling print a dinosaur. It's possible a few of the big companies - NYT, WSJ, WaPo - will give it a try at their local papers and then we'll see if it holds any promise.

Readers digest

Information may want to be free, but food doesn't. At least that's the theory behind US Ink's strategy for helping save newspapers: Let the readers digest the news and then let the readers digest the news.

US Ink has invented something called Taste It Notes, which it says could be used to enhance the experience of reading the printed newspaper. The Note works sort of like a breath mint strip, only these little pleasure packets can be flavored to match an advertisement, or maybe a particularly juicy nut graf. From the Economist:

The company says they could be paired with ads for food to give consumers a taste of the products. US Ink says that could be a boon for newspapers at a time when they're losing ground to online news sources.

Excuse me, but you have some Krugman stuck between your teeth.

Newspaper obit: LA CityBeat

Los Angeles CityBeat published its final edition yesterday. The alt weekly was six years old.

In a sign of the times, the blog LA Observed was there for the paper's birth in 2003 and recorded its death today.

Job cuts at Google

Not even Google can escape the downward pull of the Great Recession. Today, the company announced that it will cut about 200 jobs (or "roles" in Google speak) out of its sales and marketing division. Here's the official word from the Official Google Blog:

Google has grown very quickly in a very short period of time. When companies grow that quickly it's almost impossible to get everything right—and we certainly didn't. In some areas we've created overlapping organizations which not only duplicate effort but also complicate the decision-making process. That makes our teams less effective and efficient than they should be. In addition, we over-invested in some areas in preparation for the growth trends we were experiencing at the time.

So today we have informed Googlers that we plan to reduce the number of roles within our sales and marketing organizations by just under 200 globally. Making changes of this kind is never easy—and we recognize that the recession makes the timing even more difficult for the Googlers concerned.

Spokesman loses three talented veterans

Former Spokesman-Review Executive Editor Steve Smith said the latest round of layoffs has scared off three of the paper's best reporters. From his blog:

Bill Morlin, Karen Dorn Steele and Dan Webster apparently have informed management of their intention to take contract-mandated severance and leave the paper.

-snip-

The Spokane Police Department and officers’ union are probably dancing as I write this. If the city moves forward with its plan to hire a police ombudsman, the credit goes solely to Karen and Bill. If the feds ever bring charges in the Otto Zehm case, credit Karen and Bill.

Four in the afternoon

Gannett cancels freelance work exactly when it needs it most ... Los Angeles Times' pressmen plan a "save our trade" rally for Monday ... Paul Oberjuerge argues that much of a newspaper's strength lies in its slow, reflective construction ... Alan Mutter tracks the decline in newspaper advertising revenues

New York Times orders employee furloughs

Most employees of the New York Times will be forced to take 10 days of unpaid leave as the paper becomes the latest to adopt furloughs as a way to cut costs. For legal reasons, the paper has characterized the furloughs as pay cuts, saying it will cut employee pay by 5 percent over a nine-month period in exchange for the time off.

Additionally, the Times plans to layoff about 100 employees in its business department, trim its freelance budget and merge some sections of the paper to cut down printing costs.

Layoffs, pay cuts at Californian

The Bakersfield Californian is making itself and its paychecks smaller. From Editor and Publisher:

The family-owned Bakersfield Californian has cut 26 jobs -- 20 of them by layoffs -- as part of a wide-ranging austerity plan that includes a 5% salary cut for all non-union employees, an indefinite suspension of 401(k) retirement plan contributions, executive changes including a new newsroom boss, and a pledge for a "total redesign" of the paper and its Web site.

The job cuts, amounting to 11% of the staff, is the second round of layoffs in the last four months as the paper's revenue continues to spiral downward from California's collapsed housing market.

Buyouts at the Washington Post

The Washington Post is implementing another round of buyouts that will include newsroom employees. From the Post:

"This program will be limited to areas where positions do not need to be replaced or where we can otherwise achieve costs savings," Washington Post Media chief executive and Post publisher Katharine Weymouth wrote in an e-mail to employees this morning announcing the buyouts.

The targeted departments include The Post newsroom, the production and circulation departments, and a small number of positions in the advertising and information technology departments.

-snip-

"While we expect to be able to achieve meaningful staff reductions through" the buyouts, Weymouth wrote, "I am sorry to say that we cannot rule out layoffs in the future."

The newsroom now has about 700 staffers, down from a peak of 908 in 2003, the Post reports.

The real in the deal

So why did Platinum Equity spend between 15 and 50 million dollars to buy the San Diego Union-Tribune? Ken Doctor makes a persuasive argument that it was to get at the real estate - the newspaper just happened to come with the building. Which isn't particularly interesting in and of itself, but is interesting if it's emblematic of a larger trend, which Doctor thinks it just might be. He writes:

Hard as it may be to believe, we may have entered a new rocky period for newspaper companies. It would be a period in which the real estate on which they sit determines their market value. Consequently, their real estate value may determine who wants to sell the newspaper property and who wants to buy it -- to get at the real estate.

And we all know just how strong the real estate market is these days.

Essentially, Doctor is saying that the only companies willing to invest in newspapers right now are ones that think they'll be able to turn a profit once the real-estate market rebounds. They aren't putting much stock in the part of the business that involves words and pictures. Doctor continues:

What is certain is that the real estate gambit further accelerates the changing of the daily newspaper industry as we know it. After all, there will be a recovery -- including a relaxing of credit and a re-valuing of commercial real estate. That recovery will come before newspaper companies find a formula that stabilizes them.

In many cities -- of course depending on the location and value of the real estate -- that means newspaper real estate first, news publishing second. It's a world that is out of order, literally, but it's one we're inheriting.

All of which raises some troubling questions for newspaper that have already sold off their real estate holdings. What are they going to use to raise capital when the creditors come to collect?

Four in the afternoon

Cox is shrinking again ... SGVN thanks McKee for standing up for the nuts ... Anti-anti-trust/Singletonphobia in San Francisco ... The changing face of Compton, California

Twitter satire

It's the Algonquin Round Table and everyone's invited!

Congress to the rescue!

The plight of the ailing, failing newspaper industry has caught the attention of Washington pols. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Attorney General Eric Holder have made noise about relaxing anti-trust provisions to help Hearst unload the San Francisco Chronicle. Now a Maryland Senator has proposed legislation that would allow endangered papers to morph into nonprofits.

From Bennett Roth at CQ Politics (which is itself up for sale):

"We’re losing our local papers and it’s tragic. We need to look at a different model to save local newspapers,” said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin , D-Md.

Cardin introduced a bill Tuesday that would permit newspapers to operate as nonprofits, or 501(c)3 corporations, much as public broadcasting now does.

Under this arrangement, advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt, and contributions to support coverage or operations could be tax-deductible.

Such a structure would require at least one significant change for most newspapers: They would not be allowed to make political endorsements, a staple of many editorial pages.

*The nonprofit-newspaper legislation could boost efforts by a Bay Area investor to takeover the Chronicle. SF Appeal

Times, Tribune foreign desks merge

The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune will merge their foreign desk into a single Tribune Co. desk that will be run out of Los Angeles, LA Observed reports. The merger has meant some cuts and some reassignments. For example, Tina Susman, the Times' Baghdad bureau chief, will go to New York to replace Erika Hayasaki, who is leaving the paper.

Layoffs, pay cuts at Oregonian

The cost-cutting announced today at the Newhouse newspapers has hit the Portland Oregonian particularly hard. According to the editor's blog, staffers will see their paychecks reduced by between 5 and 10 percent, with three top editors taking cuts of 15 percent. Staffers will also be forced to take four days of unpaid leave between May and September and have their pensions frozen. Additionally, the paper laid off 24 part-time workers and reassigned 28 others, and is making "significant" but unspecified changes to its circulation and distribution operations.

More Times departures*,**

Kevin Roderick at LA Observed has updated his list of layoffs at the Times. He notes that reporter Jordan Rau is leaving the Sacramento bureau, although it's not clear if he's been laid off or is simply moving out of Sacramento.

*Update: More names from LAO.

**Update II: Even more names from LAO. The latest list includes former Pentagon reporter Peter Spiegel, who was supposed to be become a Beijing correspondent (and is now headed to the Wall Street Journal), and copy editor Tim Lynch, who, as I reported last week, is heading to Cal Poly Pomona.

Crowd grousing

LA Observed is collecting reactions to the news that Los Angeles Times reporter and Bottleneck blogger Steve Hymon lost his job in the latest round of layoffs at the paper. Curbed LA called Hymon "hands-down the best transportation reporter in Los Angeles" and Zach Behrens at LAist remarks that Hymon has an "ear for bullshit coming out of city officials mouths and is happy to call them on it."

Former LA Weekly editor Alan Mittlestaedt had this to say:

Steve Hymon was the best transportation writer in Los Angeles... maybe I will cancel my subscription unless the Times brings back Hymon and restores must-read Bottleneck Blog to its glory days. By the way, with the Times' surrendering key beats and expert reporters, does anyone really care if the Times folds? Let the online revolution continue.

Yelp lawsuit moves forward

A Santa Clara Superior Court judge has ruled that a dentist can move ahead with a libel lawsuit against a family that posted a critical review of the dentist on the website Yelp.

Furloughs for Gannett, round two

Another round of furloughs is planned at the Gannett chain, including the Palm Springs Desert Sun. Most employees will have to take an additional week off - unpaid, of course. Higher-paid employees will have to take a larger hit, according to a memo from Gannett President and CEO Craig Dubow, with some taking a second week off or a temporary salary reduction. From the memo:

We are about to begin the second quarter without any real relief in sight from this unprecedented economic downturn and its challenge to our company. Despite all of your truly remarkable efforts to reverse the trend, our revenue numbers continue their downward slide and we have been faced with more difficult decisions.

One of those choices was between more layoffs or another round of furloughs. We chose, for most employees, a furlough program consisting of at least one week of unpaid leave to be taken in April, May or June.

The program will differ from the first quarter’s in a couple of important ways:

• The length of the furlough for employees will vary somewhat by division or location, depending on the division’s operating needs and results.
• Our higher salaried employees will be asked to make an additional sacrifice. This could be a second furlough week or a week’s furlough plus a temporary salary reduction equivalent to one week’s pay for the quarter, depending on the division and/or location.
• Some hourly employees will not be required to take a full week. Each division or location will have different requirements for employees in this category.

Read the rest of the memo here. Also, Gannett has instituted a wage freeze effective April 1 to March 31, 2010.

The furloughs fly at Newhouse papers*

Citing "unprecedent challenges," the Newhouse chain has implemented 10-day, unpaid furloughs and a pension freeze at some or all of its newspapers. Editor & Publisher reports:

Word of the furloughs began to spread last week, but formal announcements were going out today at most of the company's Newhouse Newspapers, including The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.; The Plain Dealer in Cleveland; The Oregonian in Portland; The Times-Picayune in New Orleans; and The Staten Island (N.Y.) Advance, as well as the chain's dailies in Syracuse, N.Y.; Birmingham, Ala.; and Harrisburg, Pa.

"Most of our papers will have two measures," [Chairman Steve] Newhouse said. "One is a freeze of our defined benefit plan, or pension, that will be paired with an increase in our 401 (k) match. The other is a mandatory 10-day furlough, unpaid furlough."

A few Michigan papers will be consolidated - some going to three days a week - and unspecified salary cuts are planned in Cleveland and Portland, E&P adds. I'm also told part-time staffers at the Oregonian are being left off the work schedule; I'm not sure if that's happening elsewhere.

*Updated: Newhouse will shutter the Ann Arbor News and replace it with a web-based paper and social networking site. (via Romenesko)

Layoff day at the Times*,**

The buzz was that today would be the day for layoffs at the Los Angeles Times and Kevin Roderick at LA Observed appears to have confirmed it. From LAO:

Most guesses I'm hearing put the number at more than 50, with the editor ranks expected to take the heaviest hit. These are the delayed execution (second memo) of the previously foretold exits tied loosely to the demise of the daily California section. If the talk among Timesers is correct (and frankly, it usually is about these things), there will be names that resonate.

*Updated: LAO reports that former public health reporter and Bottleneck blog writer Steve Hymon (who was a frequent guest on "Which Way, LA?") was notified yesterday that he was out at the Times.

**Updated II: The firing of Hymon has me troubled - not only because another good journalist got laid off, but because it seems to be a rejection of everything experienced journalists are being told to do to survive: give their beats a more populist flavor, find a locally relevant niche, embrace blogging and other new media strategies, etc. I don't know the Times' internal politics or why Hymon was picked over anyone else, this is just a gut level reaction.

Mapping happiness

Gallup has put together a map measuring the well-being of Americans by state and by Congressional district. (via The Daily Yonder)I live in the 31st Congressional District in California, which doesn't look very happy at all. It ranks in the bottom 20 percent nationally.

Accepting who you are

The San Francisco Chronicle wasn't making a profit, so why not turn it a nonprofit?

Unwinding the Rocky from the Post

The Denver Post fired 40 people from the business department on Friday and will fire another 160 people in the coming weeks, according to the Denver Business Journal:

The Denver Newspaper Agency's job cuts are “partly an effort to resize the work force after the closure of the Rocky Mountain News in February,” the Post announced late Friday on its website. Post newsroom workers were not involved.

And who's that calling the shots now in Denver? Gerald Grilly, former head of LANG:

“These actions will help us shape a new business model that will allow us to adapt to new market realities,” Gerald Grilly, DNA president/CEO, said in the Post’s statement. “We are not just ink on paper anymore; we are true information providers across many platforms. The new shape of our industry demands that we work leaner and smarter to serve our customers.”

Can Dick Tracy save the newspaper?

Tribune Co. has sued actor Warren Beatty for the television and movie rights to the Dick Tracy comic book character. Said Beatty in response:

"It's a nuisance lawsuit by a bankrupt company and they should be ashamed of themselves."

Read the story here.

McKee in the LA Times

The Los Angeles Times had a story today about open-government advocate Richard McKee's big legal bill, leftover from a 2006 court decision that said he had to pay Orange Unified School District's attorney's fees after he sued them for censoring one of its board members.

A noteworthy new fact from the story: Orange Unified eliminated the seat held by the censored board member, Steve Rocco, when it redrew its political districts last year.

As to why he stood up for Rocco, McKee told the Times:

"Rocco certainly was an irritation. I was at the meetings, I saw his antics," he said. "At the same time, he was elected, and he had an obligation to express concerns about people who worked at Orange Unified and decisions they made, and that needed to be protected."

Crumpled papers

The black dots represent fallen newspapers.

Newhouse embracing furloughs?

Joe Strupp at Editor & Publisher got hold of some emails purporting to outline a plan to freeze pensions and implement a 10-day, unpaid furlough for staffers at the Star-Ledger in New Jersey. Strupp writes:

Several Star-Ledger staffers who have seen the printout, which was left in a meeting room one week ago, say it has sparked new concerns about the newsroom.

But at least some wonder if it is all a ploy to heighten fears about serious cutbacks before announcing lesser changes, such as only one week of furloughs for each staffer.

There's also concern that any pension freeze or furlough plan will spill over into other papers owned by the Newhouse chain, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Portland Oregonian.

Stop looking at me

After receiving a lowly "CCC" grade on its debt, MediaNews asked that Standard & Poor's withdraw its credit ratings for the newspaper chain. On Thurday, S&P complied with the request, according to the Denver Business Journal.

I Twitter, therefore I am

Someone created a fake Twitter account in the name of Republican pollster Frank Luntz and apparently fooled 2,000 people with it - including Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, assuming these accounts haven't been faked as well.

Kurtz even quoted from the feed in his column.

The faux-Luntz account was launched and maintained by Brian Devine of New Media Strategies, according to Simon Owens of Bloggasm:

The account likely remained unnoticed by Luntz until just recently, when he was apparently contacted by Heritage Foundation employee Robert Bluey

“I was surprised that so many people thought it was real for a ridiculous amount of time,” Devine told me in an interview. “I was really surprised that so many people would take it authoritatively without any verification whatsoever.”

Wait, now you're telling us we have to verify stuff? What a fucking drag.

Incidentally, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann today reported that someone had created a fake Twitter account in his name.

Detoxification

Early next week, the Obama Administration will roll out its plan to buy up those nasty mortgage-backed securities blamed for bringing the credit markets to a grinding halt. Apparently, the Treasury Department will push for public-private partnerships to sop up the toxic soup. From the New York Times:

The Treasury Department is expected to unveil early next week its long-delayed plan to buy as much as $1 trillion in troubled mortgages and related assets from financial institutions, according to people close to the talks.

The plan is likely to offer generous subsidies, in the form of low-interest loans, to coax investors to form partnerships with the government to buy toxic assets from banks.

Wall Street Journal

*Updated March 21, 9:49 a.m.: Paul Krugman digs into the details and finds the plan seriously wanting:

And I fear that when the plan fails, as it almost surely will, the administration will have shot its bolt: it won’t be able to come back to Congress for a plan that might actually work.

What an awful mess.

The pushdown

The Silicon Alley Insider previews some of the ugly ads the New York Times and other big publishers plan to annoy us with. They look a lot like the annoying ads you see on other websites - big ads taking up a third of the screen, pushdown ads that unfurl from the top of the screen, etc.

I love you for your real estate*

What will the sale of the San Diego Union-Tribune to Platinum Equity mean for the newspaper? Ken Doctor, who writes at Content Bridges, analyzes the deal over at PaidContent. After surveying what Platinum Equity partner David Black has done at the Akron Beacon-Journal, and considering what Platinum really values in the deal, Doctor's prognosis is unsurprising: the new owners will cut.

Doctor writes:

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.

-snip-

The Union-Tribune will get smaller and much more locally focused. And that real estate under its building (and the Union-Tribune’s other San Diego real-estate holdings, which are part of the deal)—that is the real motivator for the purchase. Consider that the Blethen Maine Papers (owned by the Seattle Times publisher) are about to be auctioned off for the value of the related real estate – not that of the papers. This is a big trend worth watching. 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 values – and therein may lie the next chapter in newspaper ownership.

*Update: Alan Mutter agrees.

Furloughs at the Register*

The company that owns the Orange County Register has ordered that nearly all employees at its 100 or so newspapers take a one-week, unpaid furlough between April 1 and June 30, Editor & Publisher reports. Freedom Communications announced the plan in a memo dated March 17. OC Register

*Updated: Furloughs and layoffs. From the Register:

Register Publisher Terry Horne said the layoffs would occur over the next few weeks, but he did not have an exact number.

Free-speech bankruptcy bailout plan

Earlier this week, the Sacramento Bee editorialized against a troubling court ruling that has left a free-speech group and its former president, Richard McKee, saddled with $86,000 in legal bills and weakened California's free-speech protections.

The ruling, which the Bee called "Orwellian" and the state Supreme Court refused to review, essentially took a law designed to stop government agencies from using the courts to silence their critics and turned it into a tool government agencies could use to silence their critics.

Here's what McKee had to say about the bizarro ruling in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin:

After prosecuting 14 other Public Records Act and Brown Act cases, McKee said he had never heard of the district using the right to free speech as a way to win a case.

The school district can take tapes of meetings and "chop it up, eliminate pieces, because of their right to free speech," McKee said. "Can you imagine how nice it is to control the information to the public? It's so ridiculous you don't know where to start."

The Bee has called for legislative reform to cure this ill, and McKee said that's exactly what he and Terry Francke of Californians Aware plan to do.

"We've kicked some ideas around and believe it could be as simple as changing the anti-SLAPP statute to preclude it from being used in a Brown Act case," McKee told me in an email. The Brown Act protects free speech at local government meetings and the anti-SLAPP law is the one designed to keep the same agencies from silencing critics by dragging them into an expensive lawsuit.

McKee and Francke are looking for a state lawmaker willing to carry the legislation.

Meantime, Francke has made a plea for financial help, since McKee has had to foot most of the $86,000 bill himself. I have already pledged to do my part, which involves subsidizing one of his favorite hobbies at the pub of his choosing.

Debate tax

The economy has tanked. Unemployment is rising. Political engagement has never been more vital. What better time then to charge admission to a political debate?

From LA Observed:

There's a candidate's forum for the 32nd congressional district tonight hosted by the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and the Latino Professional Network at the Los Angeles River Center & Gardens on West Avenue 26. But it'll cost you $15.

But this is no ordinary candidate's forum. The event kicks off at 6 p.m. with a "complimentary" tequila tasting and ends with a dance party, with a one-hour debate tucked in between.

Oh, and the candidates are Judy Chu, member of the state Board of Equalization; state Sen. Gil Cedillo, and former Obama transition team member Emanuel Pleitez.

Conscientious objector

Humberto Castelló, executive editor of El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language sister to the Miami Herald, has decided to resign his post rather than implement staff cuts at the daily newspaper.

Castelló said he worries El Nuevo Herald will lose its independence, and the first staff moves made after his announcement seem to bear him out. From the Miami Herald story, which explains why he resigned a mere 13 paragraphs in:

Castelló, addressing his staff in Spanish, said he resigned because he was unwilling to make the mandated cuts ''whether they are justified or not.'' He said a reduced staff would mean El Nuevo would likely have to share more stories from The Miami Herald.

''In the end, it's going to be something else,'' he said, urging the staff to do their utmost to provide its readers "a unique newspaper designed for the community, which deserves that.''

(h/t Romenesko)

'Fire-sale price'

The Wall Street Journal story on the sale of the San Diego Union-Tribune to Platinum Equity has a little more information about the price:

The deal price wasn't disclosed, but a person familiar with the matter said it was less than $50 million, a price largely driven by the Copley Press real estate, which includes the complex housing the Union-Tribune and another facility. The value of the assets -- even amid a downtrodden real-estate market -- gives the buyers some cushion against the struggling newspaper, according to people familiar with the matter.

The fire-sale price reflects the dried-up market for big newspapers. A number of papers have been put up for sale in the last year, but bankers say suitors are staying on the sidelines while it is hard to predict when advertising declines will hit bottom. E.W. Scripps Co. recently closed the Rocky Mountain News and Hearst Corp. this week ended the print edition of its Seattle Post-Intelligencer after the papers attracted no serious offers.

A drop in ratings

S&P further lowered the debt ratings for MediaNews Group and Freedom Communications. The companies now rate "CCC" for their respective secured lines of credit. The MediaNews empire includes nine daily papers in Southern California. Freedom owns the Orange County Register.

Living on credit

The influence credit cards have had on the way we spend, and ultimately on the health of our economy, cannot be overstated. We took a look at the credit card culture and calls for reform on Monday's "To The Point". Listen to the show here.

Afternoon links

The Claremont League of Women Voters is hosting a panel called "Print Journalism and the Challenge of the Internet" on Saturday, March 21. Panelists include Peter Weinberger, publisher of the Claremont Courier; Steve Lambert, general manager of the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, and Larry Pryor, professor of journalism at USC.

MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton likes the thought of owning all of the major dailies in Bay Area, including the emperiled San Francisco Chronicle. "Consolidation" is the watchword.

Shuttering newspapers does have consequences for democracy: political incumbents gain an even greater edge, a study shows.

Alan Mutter and Jeff Jarvis debate whether the newspaper is a dying institution in today's "Dust Up" in the Los Angeles Times.

Bankrupting free speech

The public's right to monitor its government is in trouble.

Open-government activist Richard McKee has waged a tireless battle to ensure government agencies do their work in the light of day. Over the last decade or so, the Pasadena City College chemistry professor worked to enforce California's Brown Act and Public Records Act with a gadfly's tenacity, but always with a goal of promoting the common good.

Never punitive, McKee always made an effort to reach out to recalcitrant government officials before resorting to lawsuits - the only mechanism by which the public can enforce these laws. McKee, who is not a lawyer, often ended up in court despite his best efforts. He drafted his own arguments and won far more cases than he lost.

I don't know of a newspaper in Southern California that hasn't benefited from McKee's work, either through his court victories or his free advice. Indeed, McKee often gave reporters just the boost they needed to get over the wall of obfuscation put up by government agencies trying to shield their corruption, or embarrassment, or plain bad decision-making.

Now Mckee finds himself on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars because of a wrongheaded court ruling that says he and advocacy group CalAware must pay Orange Unified School District's legal fees from a case they brought four years ago after the district censored one of its board members.

From CalAware founder Terry Francke:

This month ... California courts finalized an order that a small public interest non-profit group and its past president must pay nearly $86,000 for merely asking them to protect the public’s right to hear the opinions expressed by its local elected representatives.

-snip-

...McKee, whose wages have already been garnished by OUSD, and who has had a lien placed upon his home by the district, is left to scramble to come up with the remaining $80,000. He’s already paid $59,000 of it through a second trust deed on his home, depleted his savings, and is now taking another $16,000 from a tax shelter annuity. How he will come up with the remainder is uncertain.

Francke also makes an appeal for financial help:

To help Rich McKee stop the hemorrhage of his life savings to answer this liability and to help CalAware build its resources to fight for open government in the future, send a tax-deductible charitable gift check marked “Legal Defense Fund” to Californians Aware, 2218 Homewood Way, Carmichael, CA 95608, or contact Terry Francke by e-mail— info@calaware.org —or phone—(916) 487-7000.

One goes up, on goes out

LA Observed reports that David Lauter of the Los Angeles Times has been promoted from California editor to assistant managing editor.

Tim Lynch, senior copy chief at the LA Times, has taken a job as senior media communications coordinator at Cal Poly Pomona, effective April 6.

Union-Tribune sold to private equity firm

Copley announced today that it has sold the San Diego Union-Tribune to Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity for "an undisclosed price."

This effectively ends Copley's run as a newspaper company. But what does it mean for the Union-Tribune? For one thing, it means the paper isn't going to close down - at least not yet. Officials at Platinum have swaddled the sale in vapid business lingo, which offers little to chew on. For example:

Louis Samson, the Platinum Equity principal leading the Union-Tribune acquisition, called the newspaper “a good fit for Platinum” and its operations-focused approach.

The Canadian publishing company Black Press has a stake in the deal. From the Union-Tribune:

The firm said in a statement that its team includes David H. Black, whose company Black Press owns dozens of community newspapers, mostly in western Canada, and has expanded its U.S. presence with acquisitions of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 2000 and the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal in 2006.

Black Press ran into some controversy in 2007 for criticizing the judgment of reporters and editors at the Victoria News after they ran a story that offended a major advertiser.

Ex-Rocky reporters go online

About 30 former staffers of the defunct Rocky Mountain News plan to launch a news website called indenvertimes.com on May 4, provided they're able to sign up 50,000 subscribers by April 23.

From the Denver Business Journal:

When the site launches, the news itself will be free. But subscribers will have access to “the insights, columns and perspectives of INDT journalists, along with live interactive chats new applications, mobile feeds and advanced technologies,” according to a news release.

-snip-

In Denver Times is asking for subscriber pledges. The pledges have three prices: three months for $6.99 a month, six months for $5.99 a month, or 12 months for $4.99 a month.

Out of print

Hearst announced today that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer will become an online-only publication, with about 145 fewer news staffers. From the New York Times:

...the P-I, as it is called, will resemble a local Huffington Post more than a traditional newspaper, with a news staff of about 20 people rather than the 165 it has had, and a site consisting mostly of commentary, advice and links to other news sites, along with some original reporting.

In lieu of journalists, the P-I has decided to go directly to the source for government coverage:

Among the new columnists, Hearst said, will be Norm Rice, a former Seattle mayor, and his wife, Constance Rice; a congressman, Jim McDermott; Maria Goodloe-Johnson, who heads the city’s public schools; and a former police chief, a former United States attorney, and two former governors.

An offer they didn't refuse

The union representing workers at the San Francisco Chronicle has agreed to a deal that will cut up to 150 jobs and eliminate certain benefits for those who remain. Chronicle owner Hearst Corp had threatened to cut 225 jobs if the union refused the deal.

The center no longer holds

The center of gravity that holds the modern American newspaper together is not its loyal readers or its smart leaders or its talented journalists or its wealthy advertisers. It's the printing press; an imposing beast that's hard to operate and expensive to maintain.

As the Internet has matured, the printing press has lost its gravitational pull. Talent, wealth, loyalty and smarts are slowly escaping its orbit - some by choice, some not. New centers of gravity have cropped up to capture some of the emigrants, others remain adrift.

In a recent blog piece, Clay Shirky, who studies the Internet and teaches new media at NYU, gives the story a historical context and, in doing so, makes a compelling case for packing up our journalistic principles and setting out for new worlds.

On the failure to find a viable business model to save printed paper, Shirky offers a brief "I told you so" moment: Realists, who saw Doomsday coming, were corralled and ignored. Fabulists, who sold the snake oil of micropayments and other paper-saving cures, were heralded as "saviors."

The more powerful aspect of the story is the parallel he draws between the "experiments" that shaped modern printing and the experiments that will transition us beyond the printing press. He embraces the idea that we live a dual role in history - we are actors charting our course and passengers riding a great current. In saying so, he lets us off the hook for not being able to save our papers and assigns us the responsibility of creating what comes next.

Even if you don't agree with his arguments, the piece is worth reading (and I urge you to read the whole thing if only because I feel guilty for excerpting so much of it here):

During the wrenching transition to print, experiments were only revealed in retrospect to be turning points. Aldus Manutius, the Venetian printer and publisher, invented the smaller octavo volume along with italic type. What seemed like a minor change — take a book and shrink it — was in retrospect a key innovation in the democratization of the printed word. As books became cheaper, more portable, and therefore more desirable, they expanded the market for all publishers, heightening the value of literacy still further.

That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify.

And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it.

They are demanding to be lied to. There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.

-snip-

In craigslist’s gradual shift from ‘interesting if minor’ to ‘essential and transformative’, there is one possible answer to the question “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” The answer is: Nothing will work, but everything might. Now is the time for experiments, lots and lots of experiments, each of which will seem as minor at launch as craigslist did, as Wikipedia did, as octavo volumes did.

It's going to get uglier

Some of the biggest news sites plan to boost the annoyance factor of online ads to boost online revenues. From the LA Times:

The Online Publishers Assn. on Tuesday released several new in-your-face advertising formats designed to be both more obtrusive and interactive.

Twenty-seven top Internet publishers -- including the New York Times, CNN, CBS Interactive, ESPN and the Wall Street Journal -- say they'll try the supersize ads in an attempt to get the attention of Web surfers who have learned to ignore banners.

Jarvis on Stanton on Twitter

Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton is speaking today at "The Future of News" conference at Harvard Law School, where BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis just tweeted the following:

Stanton says they are going to cut the circ of the Sunday magazine in half in April to go just to the demos advertisers want.

Jarvis also twittered this...

Stanton says pay for news is "not a practical or realistic solution to our woes."

and this...

Russ Stanton is talking about how he brought the LATimes to the web as innovation officer.

Read all of Jarvis' TFON Tweets here or watch the conference here.

'Don't land here'

The job market for newspaper journalists has apparently become so desperate that small papers are chasing off large pools of potential applicants for open positions. Take the small Beverly Hills Weekly, which has barred the door to anyone living outside of Southern California or with five or more years of experience:

Seeking reporter who does it all- Beverly Hills Weekly
Website: http://www.bhweekly.com
Description: Beverly Hills Weekly is seeking a reporter who can cover it all from education to city council and beyond. Beverly Hills Weekly is a community paper with a circulation of 15,000 and a readership of some of the most influential people in Southern California. We do not cover entertainment news.

Applicant must be available to attend Tuesday night city council and school board meetings. B.A./B.S. degree required. (College newspaper writing experience OK)
Perfect position for a recent college graduate. This is not the position for a journalist with more than 5 years paid experience. Salary is negotiable. Southern California residents only.
Fax resume and no more than 2 clips (if available) to: (310) 887-0789 or email to josh@bhweekly.com. Absolutely NO PHONE CALLS. NO OUT OF STATE RESUMES.

Going digital

Caught flat-footed, Columbia Journalism School finds itself turning on a dime to catch up with all the catch phrases and techniques of the new media landscape: digital, hyperlocal, interactive. From New York Magazine:

The media bloodbath hasn’t made for happy days at Columbia Journalism School. When the Times recently announced that its new, hyperlocal blog experiment “The Local” would be assisted by journalism students not from Columbia but from the City University of New York, you could practically hear the collective gasp echoing in the hallowed halls uptown. CUNY? Since when does CUNY trump Columbia? Well, since digital journalism became the single ray of hope on an otherwise dark media horizon, and Columbia’s vaunted ability to train students as print reporters began to appear obsolete. And so the school is trying to change. Fast.

Beginning in August, Columbia will offer a revamped, digitally focused curriculum designed to make all students as capable of creating an interactive graphic as they are of pounding out 600 words on a community-board meeting. The force behind the change is former WSJ.com managing editor Bill Grueskin, the school’s new dean of academic affairs.

Not everyone at the school is going without a cuss-wielding fight.

But the push for modernization has also raised the ire of some professors, particularly those closely tied to Columbia’s crown jewel, RW1. “Fuck new media,” the coordinator of the RW1 program, Ari Goldman, said to his RW1 students on their first day of class, according to one student. Goldman, a former Times reporter and sixteen-year veteran RW1 professor, described new-media training as “playing with toys,” according to another student, and characterized the digital movement as “an experimentation in gadgetry.”

Past, present, future

Once upon a time, big metro newspapers were expansive...

LA Observed posts a promotional video from 1993 that shows a confident, growing Los Angeles Times near the peak of its power. The video highlights the paper's Valley edition, which had more editors sitting around a table then than there are reporters at many Southern California papers today. The Valley team would help the lead the paper to a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Northridge Earthquake the following year. (One of those editors, Robert Rector, came out of retirement in the early 2000s to edit the Pasadena Star-News while I was there).

Now big daily metro newspapers are rapidly amputating limbs and removing organs to make a body small enough to survive on a diet of shrinking revenues and debt obligations. Soon, one or more of these abused bodies will become a carcass, and a big city will be without a big metro paper, according to a story in the New York Times. Jeff Jarvis thinks it's a good thing. Most everyone else doesn't.

So what to do? What comes next? No one knows, but Whet Moser at the Chicago Reader has a comprehensive - and long - piece on how the Internet is allowing all of us, any of us, to deconstruct and reconstruct the news and how that is hurting traditional journalism. He hints at the paradox at the heart of this revolution, that those who deconstruct-reconstruct the news need traditional journalism to succeed but that traditional journalism is failing in large part because of the deconstruction-reconstruction taking place.

It's all well worth looking at/reading.

Madoff pleads guilty

As was anticipated, Bernard Madoff today pleaded guilty to bilking investors out of an estimated $65 billion. From the Los Angeles Times:

The former chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange, Madoff acknowledged 11 felony counts, including securities fraud, money laundering and perjury, that allege he cheated nearly 5,000 clients out of as much as $65 billion, according to federal prosecutors. There is no agreement on sentencing, but Madoff, 70, could spend the rest of his life in jail for running what officials have said may be the nation's biggest and most costly Ponzi scheme.

Circular firing squad*,**

Five Republican lawmakers so far have become targets for recall in the wake of the recent state budget deal.

Assemblyman Anthony Adams of Claremont and state Sens. Abel Maldonado and Roy Ashburn have all been targeted because they voted for the budget package, which includes tax increases (a package that voters still have to approve before it takes effect - if they vote yes, will we have to recall them?).

Assemblymen Jeff Miller and Jim Silva have been targeted because they didn't support a failed coup against Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines, who negotiated and supported the budget deal. Villines counterpart in the Senate, Sen. Dave Cogdill, was sacked and replaced with a more conservative conservative.

*Updated March 12, 3:38 p.m.: Ashburn dodged a first bullet. Turns out the recall effort failed to gather the 40 valid signatures needed to get the process going, although the man driving the recall effort pledged to try again.

**Updated March 12, 9:01 p.m.: The P-E reports that the man leading the recall effort against Adams is the chief financial officer of JohnsonClark Associates, the same Sacramento campaign consultant that will run Adams' anti-recall campaign. (h/t Capitol Alert)

Three things I read on Romenesko today

The Associated Press countersues Echo Park-based artist Shepard Fairey, who sued AP after AP claimed he had infringed on its copyright for using an AP photo as the basis for his "Hope" Obama poster.

The Miami Herald slashes its workforce, becoming the latest McClatchy newspaper to do so. The paper will cut 175 employees and eliminate 30 vacant positions. The employees who remain will see a pay cut of either 5 or 10 percent, depending on how much they make. Also, the paper plans to shrink its print edition. In December, McClatchy put the Herald up for sale.

Lastly, a law professor at the University of Montana wants to shut down the college paper's weekly sex column because she doesn't like it. She's threatened to take her case to the Board of Regents... even the state Legislature if necessary! Apparently the professor doesn't teach constitutional law.

The wisdom of the axe

Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton and former LAT Editor Jim O'Shea discussed the wisdom of and prospects for making further newsroom cuts at the paper, and opine as to whether the Times should simply shut down the presses (the answer is no, because the print edition is still the real money maker). The two met at a conference at Harvard Law School.

Voila, convergence!

The individuated-newspaper initiative jogs a reader's memory of yet another mostly forgotten newspaper experiment. This time it's the CueCat, a bar-code reader that aimed to link the printed page to the World Wide Web.

From NAA's TechNews column:

Of course, all these technologies assume that you’re willing to read (or watch television) while hunched over your creaky computer table. As wireless advocates predict about the ’Net as a whole, print-to-Web technology will leap forward when it’s untethered from the PC and accessible anywhere.

The year 2000 never seemed so long ago.

Cash for stimulus*,**

The Pasadena Star-News reports on a Metropolitan Transportation Authority plan that allows cities without 'shovel-ready' transportation projects to sell their federal stimulus allotment to cities with projects for cash. Sierra Madre, La Habra Heights, Rolling Hills and Bradbury have already made deals.

*Updated 9:51 p.m.: The Los Angeles Times follows the Star-News story and finds that MTA officials suddenly aren't so comfortable with nature of some of the deals:

Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is responsible for distributing federal highway and transit stimulus funds to agencies in Los Angeles County, said they had no objection to this kind of exchange provided the projects that are to receive stimulus funds meet the federal criteria.

But officials sent a letter to city managers and others Tuesday saying that efforts by more municipalities to take the bartering process a step further will not be allowed.

**Updated March 11, 7:11 a.m.: The Star-News had a folo of its own. Apparently MTA staff just didn't understand what the MTA board wanted - and neither did the cities, where officials that had completed deals are freaking out. The MTA now says the deals are strictly limited to a dollar-for-dollar exchange of federal stimulus money for future allocations of county Measure R transportation funds.

Ad mix

LANG today announced several personnel and job title changes that will further consolidate the business operations of the Torrance Daily Breeze, Los Angeles Daily News and Long Beach Press-Telegram - now dubbed LANG's metro division. From the staff story:

"These moves are not only designed to get efficiencies throughout our organization, but to strategically position all three metro division companies with coordinated, cohesive strategies that will drive our sales and circulation efforts," said Edward R. Moss, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.

Broad makes noise about buying the Times

In a speech given Monday in New York, Eli Broad said he's still interested in buying the Los Angeles Times from the now-bankrupt Tribune Co. - not outright but through a partnership that includes his foundation.

From Reuters:

Broad, jokingly, said: "I've regained my sanity since then," referring to his earlier interest. But turning more serious, he added: "I would like to see our foundation and others join together to own the LA Times."

Even then, budget constraints would likely be at play. "I am not sure it can be a national paper, or have the same aspirations it once had," said Broad. He added that one way to broaden reach could be tie-up with The Washington Post Co.

Employee-owned papers?

The union at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer first broached the idea of buying its threatened newspaper from Hearst Corp last month. Now the union representing workers at the San Francisco Chronicle has approached Hearst with a purchase proposal of its own. Is this something more than an effort to gain a toehold in the negotiations if the paper is put up for sale?

From the SF Weekly:

The request was made in a written set of suggestions for keeping the paper alive that the California Media Workers Guild submitted to Hearst earlier this week. "It is our intention to form a public-labor partnership to explore the possibility of acquiring the Chronicle should the paper be offered for sale," the Guild proposal states. "If necessary, we will keep the paper going on borrowed funds and volunteer labor."

Borrowed funds and volunteer labor? The former sounds like what's already been going on and the latter sounds like the very thing the guild is trying to avoid.

Four in the morning

Gearing up for the Cold War in the 21st century ... Losing our religion ... Stuck in Lodi again ... Song of the Laid-Off Copy Editor's Lament

Cuts at the Sacto Bee*,**

The Sacramento Bee is expected to cut as many as 26 newsroom staffers next week. Those that remain will see their paychecks cut by six percent.

*Updated March 9, 5:42 p.m.: The Sacramento Bee will lose 29 newsroom staffers, the paper announced today, and 128 jobs overall. That brings the total number of layoffs to 301 since June.

The cuts are part of a company-wide downsizing plan. Owner McClatchy is slashing 15 percent of its total workforce, or about 1,600 jobs. McClatchy stock was trading at 45 cents this morning.

**Updated: The Fresno Bee is still working on its layoff plan.

Remaking America in the Great Recession

The corporate titans that once stood as symbols of America's economic might are faltering and the Great Job Purge of 2008-09 has spread from sea to shining sea, signaling a massive reshaping of the American economic landscape is underway. So what will the new America look like when the recovery finally comes? It's too big a question to answer, but one we're wrestling with at "To The Point." Here's a first attempt at getting our head around the issue.

Back to the future

The news of MediaNews Group's "I-News" inspired an anonymous commenter to dredge up an old and mostly forgotten newspaper experiment. It's rich:

Here's a must-watch newspaper 1981 experiment on YouTube that lasted about as long as Singleton's printer will: http://tinyurl.com/dn4avh

A tale of two job listings

To get an idea of how tough the job market for newspaper journalists has become in Southern California, a friend recently sent along the following two newspaper job listings.

The first comes from the Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (circ. 5,860) in Sulphur Springs, Texas (pop. 15,387*). The paper is advertising for a full-time photographer - experience preferred but not required. The position pays between $25,000 and $30,000, or between $12 and $14.40 an hour.

The second listing comes from the Redlands Daily Facts (circ. 7,094) in Redlands, Calif. (pop. 71,807**). The paper is looking for a full-time reporter/photographer, some experience and a bachelor's degree in either journalism or communications are required. The hybrid position pays between $20,000 and $25,000, or between $9.60 and $12 an hour.

According to City-Data.com, the median price for a home in Sulphur Springs is $92,934, the median household income is $35,407 and the median rent is $546. City-Data says the median price for a home in Redlands is $419,900, the median income is $65,782 and the median rent is $985.

Given how volatile the real estate market is some of the City-Data stats are probably out of date, but you get the picture.

For some added context, when I first went to work for the twice-weekly Claremont Courier (circ. 5,000) in 1997, I was paid about $9 an hour.

*City-Data.com
**2008 California Department of Finance

Bellows dead at 86

Legendary editor Jim Bellows died today at the age of 86. He had suffered from Alzheimer's. From the Los Angeles Times:

Over two decades beginning in the 1960s, Bellows transformed the New York Herald Tribune, the Washington Star and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner into showcases of sophisticated writing and spunky reporting that often shamed their more formidable rivals.

Bellows could not save the papers, each of which ultimately sank under long-standing financial pressures. But he helped them shake their bones in their twilight years and revived a spirit of competition in what had been essentially one-newspaper towns. Along the way, he created an early platform for the innovative brand of nonfiction called New Journalism and saw his best ideas copied by the stronger paper across town.

Careful with that axe

Hearst has threatened to cut 225 jobs at the beleaguered San Francisco Chronicle unless the newsroom's union agrees to strict concessions - and then only 150 jobs will be cut. The East Bay Express reports:

The company demands include giving up senority rights and slashing vacation, sick time, and maternity/paternity leave. The company also wants the union to allow it to oustsource some jobs to nonunionized employees.

(h/t Romenesko)

Printless in Seattle

Rather than shutter the Seattle Post-Intelligence, Hearst seems poised to move ahead with an all-digital newspaper, the New York Times reports.

So, how many newsroom staffers will the digital P-I employ? According to Ken Doctor at Content Bridges, about 22 news staffers would remain, down from the 170 staffers the P-I has now.

Adding the cost savings from eliminating print to the revenue losses from going digital, Doctor guesstimates that digital papers would have to jettison roughly 75 percent of their staff to become a going concern. That's something to think about as MediaNews Group tinkers around with the "I-News" service (see below).

All the news you find fit to print

Los Angeles Daily News subscribers will be the first to test drive an electronic news-delivery system called "I-News" that Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group claims will turn readers into their own editors and publishers.

The "I" stands for "individuated" and the system purports to let subscribes choose which news stories they want to receive - and which ones they don't - via a stand-alone printer hooked up to a phone line or through a web-enabled device. The Daily News plans to test the "I-News" service sometime this summer.

From the Denver Post:

"You'll be able to choose the news you want about anything, whether you're a Detroit Red Wings fan or if you're green-oriented," said Mark Winkler, executive vice president of sales and marketing for MediaNews Group. "You become your own editor and publisher."

I-News gathers content not just from The Denver Post and other MediaNews papers but also from The Associated Press and other "scrapers of media," Wink ler said.

"We want to give the consumer exactly what they want," he said.

Time will tell whether this will be more useful to readers than Google Alerts and RSS feeds, and the story does not mention anything about subscription prices or delivery options. Will existing newspaper subscribers get the service for free? Can they dump the print edition and go with the e-edition only? Can new subscribers sign up for the e-edition without getting the printed newspaper? Will MediaNews offer these stand-alone printers for sale?

Then there's the moral hazard of turning newsrooms into buffet lines. If more subscribers want sports than City Hall coverage, will the paper cut resources to the latter? Or will revenues be shared equally? Is there a chance traditional beats will disappear if their numbers don't perform? Will subscribers have to pay more the more news topics they choose to receive?

Maybe more important in the short run, however, is a proposal mentioned toward the bottom of the Post's piece to cut the number of days the newspaper's print edition is published, as MediaNews has already done in Detroit:

One proposal, based on how well testing in Los Angeles goes, would be to print the newspaper only three days a week. That will already be the case with the two papers in Detroit, including MediaNews Group's Detroit News, starting March 31.

"Our greatest expense is printing and delivering a newspaper," Winkler said. "Eliminating it four days a week would be significant."

Layoffs at the Press-Enterprise*

Responding to an edict handed down from parent-company A.H. Belo, the Riverside Press-Enterprise started another round of layoffs on Wednesday. I haven't heard how many positions are being cut but the names are beginning to trickle in. Yesterday, Executive News Editor Barbara Tarshes was handed a pink slip. Here are a few additional names to add to the list:

Richard Fisher, assistant managing editor
Glenn Gullickson, city editor
Cindy Martinez Rhodes, reporter
Imran Vittachi, reporter
Greg Vojtko, photographer
Zeke Minaya, SB County reporter
Melanie Ladonga, news assistant
Jessican Logan, night cops reporter

A number of these journalists had covered areas in San Bernardino, which makes me wonder if the paper is pulling back its non-Riverside coverage.

*Updated March 9, 12:18 p.m.: Additional names:

From sports:
Diamond Leung
Tim Dutton
Dan Alegria
Kevin Pierson
Jason Vrtis
Dan Weber
Ralm Jung
Photographers:
David Shea
Frank Bellino
Paul Alvarez
Reporting staff:
Hope Pierson
Jessica Logan
Art department:
Becky Hageman

Former KB Home CEO charged with fraud

As the SEC mulls civil charges against former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo (see below), a federal grand jury today handed down a 20-count indictment against former KB Home CEO Bruce Karatz for criminal fraud.

Here's part of the press release from the Department of Justice:

A former CEO and chairman of the board of KB Home was named today in a 20-count indictment that charges him in a scheme to defraud KB and its shareholders by awarding himself and other KB executives millions of dollars in undisclosed stock-based compensation in connection with the backdating of stock options over a seven-year period.

Bruce E. Karatz, 63, of Bel Air Estates, was charged with seven counts of mail fraud, five counts of wire, three counts of securities fraud, four counts of making false statements in reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and one count of lying to KB’s accountants.

This scheme alleged in the indictment involves Karatz’s use of hindsight pricing to inflate the value of stock options granted to him and other KB executives, as well as Karatz’s ongoing concealment of this practice from KB’s board of directors, Compensation Committee and shareholders. Furthermore, the indictment alleges, when an internal investigation into stock-option backdating was initiated at KB in May 2006, Karatz falsely denied his orchestration of the stock-option backdating scheme and caused a false report of KB’s historical option-granting practices to be submitted to KB’s Audit Committee and outside auditor, which impeded the timely and accurate disclosure of this matter in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Former Countrywide CEO could face fraud charges

The Securities and Exchange Commission is likely to recommend former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo and at least two other company executives face fraud charges for misleading shareholders about the risks associated with its aggressive subprime lending practices, according to a story in today's Los Angeles Daily Journal by Gabe Friedman. The charges would be civil rather than criminal.

From the story:

The charges would be the most significant attempt at an enforcement action by government lawyers against high-ranking executives involved in Southern California's massive mortgage lending meltdown that presaged the nation's current economic crisis.

Once the nation's largest home lender, Countrywide has become synonymous with exotic lending practices that ultimately became unsustainable. Countrywide, now part of Bank of America, shifted away from traditional fixed-rate mortgages toward riskier loans such as subprime and adjustable rate mortgages in recent years. Investigators are paying particular attention to a loan program in which Countrywide allowed borrowers to pay less than the minimum monthly interest due on their loans, the sources said.

About a month ago, lawyers for Mozilo and his successor David Sambol both received phone calls offering a final opportunity to make their case with SEC staff who are investigating the matter. The offers, informally known as "pre-Wells" notices, can be precursors to actual "Wells notices," formal written letters from the SEC notifying individuals that formal charges will be recommended to the Commission. A final decision on whether to file charges could take at least two months, the sources said, and the executives' lawyers could have another opportunity to meet with the commissioners before the decision is made.

DJ stories are behind a steep pay wall, thus no link to the full story.

Tarshes out at PE

I'm told Riverside Press-Enterprise Executive News Editor Barbara Tarshes lost her job today as the paper moves ahead with another round of cuts.