The interview offers hints about what's next for MediaNews. Consolidation, of course, is on the agenda. Singleton couches the consolidation plans in talk of expansion, which would indicate that mergers with are on the horizon too add to company's properties, since even he can't spin shrinking as a form of growth.
He also talks about mobile and social media strategies, which MediaNews has been working on some time. And Singleton offers a more cautious view of pay walls than I've read before:
"We're experimenting with pay walls, but there's no certainty pay walls are going to work," he concedes. "The best reason to have a pay wall is that it sends a message to consumers that all information is not free. And I think having sent the message for fifteen years that it is, we need to send a different message -- that all information isn't free. Although you can't have a total pay wall, because we're generating a lot of traffic, and a lot of revenue, for the content we have."MediaNews has already outlined a strategy where features, sports and some user-generated content would go behind pay walls, with breaking news still free. But the statement above, along with the desire to merge operations with other papers, makes me wonder if MediaNews wants to limit pay walls to niche content, such as Politico has done with its Politico Pro.
Then there is Singleton's homage to news, a sentiment most people who work (or worked) on the news side would have liked to have seen in practice when he was wielding the axe:
"Newspapering is my primary love, and the news side is my real passion. Having been a CEO for 27 years at MediaNews and for eight years prior to that for another company that I didn't own, I've been a newspaper CEO for 35 years. And I've been very much a businessman, because that's what you have to do to build a company. I love the business side of newspapering, no question. But my first love is and always has been the news side. And I don't have any intentions of drawing a breath of life outside of newspapering."A nice career epitaph. I'm not sure it will stick.
Posts
10 comments:
"And I don't have any intentions of drawing a breath of life outside of newspapering."
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
To think of all the young journalist who actually had the passion for "newspapering" Singleton claims for himself. How many of them did he rob of that passion? How many did he lay off? How many did he overwork until they cracked and left. What a clueless, arrogant a-hole.
now, that's funny. you can always depend on dean's sense of humor.
Glad he has the balance sheet for expansion. His employees are on furlough, earning no vacation, and have seen colleagues laid off. They earn no 401k match, make lousy wages and haven't any sign of pay increases in the future.
But he can expand. Great. Despicable.
think of everyone who owns a sad newspaper about to plunge into despair, knowing the business model is hopelessly obsolete, wondering how to get out of the quicksand ... and here comes Dean Singleton, white knight on a horse: "I will buy your newspaper! I will even overpay for it, because I leverage and then file bankruptcy! I will also take the blame for all its impending failures, because I am a newspaperman." You can take it to the bank.
Lean Dean will never draw a the breath of life outside newspapering because he only knows how to take that breath of life from all those who he employs, all those who work O.T. without compensation, all those who are running scared day in and day out wondering if they are the next ones to be thrown out in the cold with house payments, car payments and kids schools to pay. No raises, furloughs, no vacation accruals, depleting their accumulated vacation time in a span of a couple of months. No future and no plan to improve the properties, just drawing that life out, i.e. money, for himself. If that is what he calls a successful 35 yr. CEO career, Lean Dean is sadly mistaken. He confuses fear for respect, because those who work for him do not respect him, but only fear that they are the next ones to go.
it is good to be loved and admired...what a legacy.
(Anonymous said...
How many of them did he rob of that passion? How many did he lay off? How many did he overwork until they cracked and left.)
*raises hand*
you are not slaves. leave. there arer choices out there. even in a very difficulty economic climate, look eleswhere. they are a terrible soul sucking organization run by dolts...go somewhere else.
Dean tries to get out front of the reality. Here's the truth: He has been kicked to the curb. Long before the web starting killing off advertising, Dean Singleton was murdering newspapers throughout the land. All he cared about was the nameplate. He leaves a company that is dead in the water on the print side and so stripped and weak it can't build anything on the digital side.
Post a Comment