Digital First Media now a MediaNews and Journal Register mashup

Digital First Media's inhalation of the MediaNews Group and the Journal Register Company has resulted in a new management team, with executives from the two newspaper companies being reassigned as Digital First officers under CEO John Paton.

Journal Register CFO Jeff Bairstow was named president of Digital First Media; Jim Brady becomes editor in chief, having previously served as the Journal Register's editor-in-chief, and David Butler, who headed MediaNews Group's California papers, is now executive editor of Digital First.

The three members of the Journal Register's journalism advisory board also become the advisory board for Digital First. They are well known media critics Jay Rosen of New York University's journalism program, CUNY professor and BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis, and Emily Bell of Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism.

Here's the memo announcing the changes:

Digital First Media, which jointly manages MediaNews Group and Journal Register Company, announced today the appointments of key executives in sales, content and operational positions.

“With today’s announcement we are putting into place the very best team to lead both MediaNews Group and Journal Register Company in implementing our Digital First strategy,” said John Paton, CEO of Digital First Media. “I am excited about the depth and breadth of talent we have assembled from both companies as we continue to work to serve our communities and growing audience. Like all legacy media companies making this important transition to Digital, we have a long way to go to fulfill that promise. Today marks an important first step.”

Jeff Bairstow was named President of Digital First Media. Mr. Bairstow, joined Journal Register Company in 2010 and was, until recently, Journal Register Company’s Chief Financial Officer. In his new role, Mr. Bairstow – who was also named President of MediaNews Group – will oversee daily operations across Journal Register Company and MediaNews Group.

“We have a tremendous opportunity to leverage the knowledge of these two companies – both in traditional journalism and digital product development – into a unified leadership team that will drive the necessary digital transformation to power our growth,” said Mr. Bairstow.

Ron Mayo was named Chief Financial Officer of Digital First Media. Mr. Mayo will retain his duties as CFO of MediaNews Group in addition to his new role.
Named as Executive Vice Presidents of Digital First Media were:

-       Jerry Grilly, who will continue to serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of The Denver Post; Steve Rossi, who is responsible for the company’s California operations; and Tom Wiley, who has served as a group publisher for Journal Register Company.

-       Arturo Duran, who joined Journal Register Company in 2010 as Executive Vice President for Digital, was named Chief Digital Officer.

-       Kirk MacDonald, who has served as The Denver Post’s Executive Vice President of Advertising, Marketing and Digital Sales since July 2009, was named Executive Vice President of Sales. Adam Burnham, who has served as Journal Register Company’s Vice President of Local Sales, was named Senior Vice President of Local Digital Sales.

-       William Higginson, who has worked for Journal Register Company since its founding and most recently served as President, was named Executive Vice President of Operations.

Jim Brady, who was named Journal Register Company’s Editor-in-Chief earlier this year, was named Editor-in-Chief of Digital First Media. David J. Butler, who has served as Vice President of News for MediaNews Group and Editor of the San Jose Mercury News, was named Executive Editor.

Named as Vice Presidents of Digital First Media were: Jonathan Cooper, who recently served as Vice President of Content for Journal Register Company; Sara Glines, who recently served as Vice President of Field Operations for MediaNews Group; and Joe Miller, who has served as Journal Register Company’s Vice President for Real Estate, was named Vice President for Real Estate.

Bob Mason, who has served as Journal Register Company’s Chief Technology Officer since 2010, has been named Chief Technology Officer for Digital First Media.
Robert Monteleone, who has served Chief Human Resources Officer for Journal Register Company, was named Chief Human Resources Officer for Digital First Media.

Along with the management appointments, Mr. Paton also announced appointments to the Digital First Media Advisory Board. Named to the Advisory Board were: 

-      Jeff Jarvis, Associate Professor and Director of the Interactive Journalism program and the new business models for news project at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.

-     Emily Bell, Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. 

-      Jay Rosen, Ph.D, professor and former chair of the journalism program at New York University. 

Mr. Jarvis, Ms. Bell and Mr. Rosen had previously served as members of Journal Register Company’s Advisory Board.

Four for the weekend

1. Borzou Daragahi, who is leaving the Los Angeles Times for the Financial Times, had this to say about a proposed bonus package for Tribune Co. bosses: Tribune 2 give $42.5 million bonuses to 640 managers that could be used 2 hire 640 journos http://bit.ly/q2GLT4 #media

2. Speaking of the LA Times: No more vacation accrual for the rest of the year, LA Observed reports.

3. Steve Lambert, editor and publisher of the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, has stepped down, according to several sources. Lambert previously worked at the San Bernardino Sun, which is part of the same MediaNews Group chain of papers.

4. The LA Times laid off ten pressroom employees today. Pressmens blog

From BANG to LANG?

MediaNews Group's decision to merge its 12 Bay Area newspapers into three has led to speculation that the company could do something similar with its nine Southern California papers, collectively known as the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.

I can only speculate myself, but I see the potential for structural mimicry if MediaNews succeeds in its stalled bid to buy the Orange County Register.

With the Register, LANG would look more like the Bay Area News Group did before yesterday's merger, with the Register playing the role of the Mercury News: a large paper with a statewide brand in a relatively affluent county that could serve as an editorial center of gravity for a larger region. The LANG papers already exist as three clusters of three, a structure that could be collapsed into two or three newspapers.

However, MediaNews would have to have a reason to further consolidate LANG. One obvious reason would be a desire to cut staff to lower costs - the BANG merger led to 120 layoffs. I might be wrong, but I think LANG was already leaner than BANG in terms of staff and so might not be able to stand such a huge "streamlining." (Indeed, the Register itself might be more vulnerable if cuts are a priority.)

Another reason could be that MediaNews actually believes the BANG model is more efficient and effective: Fewer brand names, a more uniform editorial approach, better positioning to do mobile, etc.

One reason MediaNews might leave LANG alone, even after a Register deal, would be to give it time to evaluate the Bay Area merger to see what works and what doesn't. Undoubtedly, there will be backlash from readers and circulation will probably drop (though the consolidation will mask some of this). But this feels like a post-print production plan and so BANG might be the guinea pig that gets isolated and studied until it recovers - or doesn't.

Stalled negotiations in bid for OC Register stall again

Europe is always doing something. And this time, that something is being blamed for delaying the sale of the Orange County Register.

According to the Wall Street Journal, MediaNews Group's $350 million bid to buy the Register and the rest of Freedom Communications's newspaper holdings stalled because of instability in the markets caused by the European debt crisis.

Talks stalled earlier this year over price, but apparently MediaNews, through a number of cost-cutting actions, offered enough money to get Freedom on board. The Journal says talks might resume in a few weeks, if the markets calm down a bit.

MediaNews extends paywalls

MediaNews Group today announced that 23 of its paper will go behind digital paywalls - at least part way. The affected papers include two in Southern California, the Whittier Daily News and the Redlands Daily Facts. Print subscribers will be charged $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year for full access; digital-only subscriptions cost $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year.

Under the plan, online home pages, obits and classified ads will remain free. Business, feature, and sport stories go behind the walls. This is an extension of the experiment MediaNews started last year in Chico, California and York, Pennsylvania.

My sense is the papers will depend on prep sports to drive print subscribers to pay a little extra. The papers are also some of the smallest in the MediaNews universe.

Here's how MediaNews is selling the paywall:

Our new digital business model reflects the high value we place on professional journalism and helps us to fund our local reporting at a time of unprecedented change in the way people use and consume news and information.

Four Thursday

1. Science writer Thomas Maugh departed the Los Angeles Times in what is expected to be an unrelenting month of layoffs and buyouts at the paper. LAO

2. Alan Mutter remains bearish on the newspaper business, despite all the cutbacks. Mutter

3. The Onion wants a paywall, but the Washington Post wants to stay free (for now). Romenesko

4. Gannett's Florida Today laid off 25 percent of its newsroom, bringing the total number of employees to 57. Gannett Blog

No bottled water under the Sun

Perhaps there are environmental factors behind this, but the decision to end water-cooler service at the San Bernardino Sun feels like a cost-savings move. Here's note to staffers:

Effective Thursday, August 11th we will be discontinuing the bottled water service at The Sun’s business office and production plant.  Just a reminder that we do have water fountains on both floors of both buildings.  Please use the water faucets in the break rooms for making coffee if there is not already a faucet located at your coffee station.

It's a time of belt-tightening everywhere. Santa Monica College, which owns the offices where I work, just gave up Sparkletts for Arrowhead, as a way to save money.

9/11 memorial in style

The Associated Press has published a style guide of 9/11 terms. The full list is here, courtesy of Nieman Journalism Lab.

Here's an example:

Flight 93
Acceptable in first reference for United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pa. Include airline name and context of crash in subsequent references. Flight 93 memorial is acceptable in all references for the Flight 93 National Memorial at the crash site.

The not-so way back machine

When I started in journalism, I used a phone and a computer that had no Internet connection. Sure we had a fax machine that spit out page after page of useless spam ads, and a modem that let us dial in to the local water district to get temps and rainfall totals, but there was nothing to pass the time when we weren't working.

And that was 1997.

Imagine what it was like in 1987! Heavy, bulky typewriters, rubber cement, hot wax, indoor smoking, and other forgotten horrors.

Well, the Journoterrorist set up an experiment to see what would happen:

Want to freak out a newsroom full of college journalists?

Sit them down at manual typewriters and ask them to plunk “2011″ onto a piece of paper. 

They’ll only make it halfway.“Mine’s broken!” one reporter at Florida Atlantic University yelled a couple of Saturdays ago, when we launched the inaugural ALL ON PAPER project. 

“There’s no number 1 key.” 

“This one is busted, too!” yelled another. 

“They’re not broken,” I replied. “Manual typewriters didn’t have a number 1 key. They used a lower-case L instead.”

The good old days. Oh, and here's a video (this is multimedia after all):

All on Paper from Tatiana Cohen on Vimeo.

Four Monday

1. The New Yorker has made more than $1.2 million on its iPad app. Apparently, some people still want to read. NYT

2. There's no future in pork bellies. NYT

3. How LA Times environmental writer Margot Roosevelt learned she was losing her job. LAO

4. Professional food journalists feeling pressure from the amateurs. Poynter

Layoffs at the LA Times

The pink slips were expected, but that doesn't make them any more welcome.

LA Observed reports that columnist Tim Rutten, environmental writer Margot Roosevelt and NBA writer Mark Heisler are among the staffers laid off by the Times. About a dozen newsroom layoffs are expected and poor ad revenues are said to be to blame.

Dupuy to depart FishbowlLA

Tina Dupuy is leaving FishbowlLA to work at Crooks and Liars, a blog I'll add to my blog roll. Next stop, Gawker?

LA Times cutbacks, papers for sale, and other speculation

I'm told a memo was circulated this weekend among Los Angeles Times staffers asking for volunteers to take buyouts as a way to lessen or avoid layoffs at the paper.

The Chicago Tribune, the Times's sister paper, laid off 20 people on Friday, "many of them" from the newsroom, WBEZ reported.

Times employees are in a state of anxiety, as LA Observed pointed out last week, as rumors of layoffs swirl amid continued efforts by owner Tribune Co. to crawl out of bankruptcy. Investors are impatient and layoffs are a quick way to improve the financial picture in the short term.

So, is this about boosting profits and satisfying debt holders? Or should we believe the Wall Street Journal's speculation that the Times could be being readied for sale - with a smaller payroll making for a more attractive sales price?

And since we're speculating... Could the Tribune be raising cash as a way to up its bid for the Orange County Register? The Register's publisher announced Friday that he'll at the end of September, which would indicate a deal is in the works. MediaNews Group had emerged as the top bidder for the paper, but negotiations broke down last month. This was followed by a flurry of layoffs in MediaNews's Southern California newspapers - a sign the chain is looking to up its ante.

Layoffs atop Reuters

Thomson Reuters has fired the business chief of its news division along with four other top executives, reports The Wrap. The move is part of a three-year rolling reorganization aimed at catching Bloomberg and Dow Jones. From my vantage point, Reuters has hired good writers and reporters but remains hard to find.

The Wrap has a vested interest in this news, as the entertainment and media website partnered with Reuters America last year (not mentioned in the breaking news update above).

*Meantime, Gannett is hiring executives.

Blog-splanation

Yes, I'm still here. Yes, the blog is still active.

For the last several weeks, I've been helping KCRW as it goes through a restructuring. It's been time consuming (in a good way) but has robbed all of you of my semi-wisdom/opportunities to say terrible things about newspaper layoffs. 

As soon as matters at work settle down, the updates will once again flow. 

Sorry.

Four Wednesday

1. Platinum Equity is exploring a possible sale, er divestiture, of the San Diego Union-Tribune. UT

2. The Associated Press releases new social media guidelines. AP (via Romenesko)

3. Simon Dumenco says punishment of Huffington Post writer for "over-aggregating" copy obscures the fact that over-aggregation of copy is a central Huffington Post strategy. Ad Age

4. Feeling claustrophobic about this weekend's Carmageddon carpocalypse? JetBlue had a solution - for $4, the Car-mageddon fly-over would have taken you from Long Beach to Burbank, or vice versa, allowing you to avoid all ground congestion. The trip would have taken 45 minutes, not counting security checks, but the flights are sold out anyway. JetBlue

Rupert Murdoch has a way with news

Carl Bernstein, investigative reporter of Watergate fame, and Roger Cohen of the New York Times debate the media legacy of Rupert Murdoch in the wake of the News of the World implosion. Bernstein begins ...
 Has Rupert Murdoch changed the news of the world? by KCRW

News of the World scandal leads to new arrests

British police today arrested the former spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron in the ever-worsening scandal over phone hacking at News of the World. The family of Rupert Murdoch has already vowed to shutter the 168-year-old tabloid on Sunday.

Sun newsroom says 'no' to union

I'm told newsroom employees at the San Bernardino Sun have rejected an effort to form a union at the MediaNews Group-owned newspaper. The vote was 12 to 2 against.

When the union election was set, 17 people were eligible to cast ballots. I'm told two people have since left and one ballot was challenged - an action that won't change the outcome.

Layoffs and leavings at the Daily News

The Los Angeles Daily News newsroom got a little smaller this week. Online content producer Cliff Redding and web producer/designer Tom Gapen received layoff notices. A third person, from circulation, also got a pink slip. The latter layoff was mentioned last week.

Additionally, the city editor of the Los Angeles Daily News, John Miller, is leaving the paper to teach high school English in Kuwait, according to a memo obtained by LA Observed.

(Corrections: Original post had Mr. Redding's and Mr. Gapen's titles wrong.)