BANG goes boom

MediaNews Group announced today that its Bay Area News Group will undergo a major consolidation that will merge 12 newspapers into three and eliminate 120 jobs - 48 of the positions are in the newsroom, KQED reports. When all is finished, BANG will consist of the Mercury News, The Times and East Bay Tribune.

BANG is using words like "streamlining" and "rebranding" to describe the merging and cutting. The actions should not come as a surprise given the decision MediaNews made in June to consolidate editorial control of the papers.

Here's part of the story (which appears to have been written by an ad agency) published on the soon-to-be retooled Contra Costa Times website:

Bay Area News Group (BANG) today announced a rebranding of many of its newspapers to better reflect the scope of its regional coverage. The changes - which include a streamlining of its print operations - primarily involve its East Bay newspapers, and will result in greater emphasis on providing high-impact, regional and local coverage. 

-snip- 

The streamlining of its print operations will also result in a reduction of approximately 120 jobs - primarily in the production and editorial divisions - out of a local workforce of 1,500 employees.

Management at MediaNews will argue, as it does in the story, that this consolidation is about much more than job cuts; that its a necessary step to position the BANG as a competitive news outlet in the rough and tumble 21st century. And maybe this smaller knot of news power will get the job done. But we cannot overlook the fact that this recently bankrupt company is trying to raise $350 million to buy newspapers from Freedom Communications. And we know editorial power wanes when you eliminate four dozen news staffers.

Or as the San Francisco Chronicles' Carla Marinucci tweeted: “Corporate PR spin: Release from CA’s Bay Area News Group, announcing decimation of its newspaper/staff chain tday, calls it ‘rebranding.’” (found via Romenesko)

Four in the morning

1. At least the headline isn't editorializing ... oh wait. Politico

2. The coming onslaught of privacy legislation. San Jose Mercury News

3. Journalists need to make readers understand why they need to pay attention. Nieman Lab

4. Like his Republican opponent, Jerry Brown will release a budget plan that can safely be ignored. PropZero

The Bay Citizen lands Fainaru

Former Washington Post reporter Steve Fainaru, who won a Pulitzer Prize for a series he did on the abuses of Blackwater and other private contractors, has taken over as managing editor of the nonprofit journalism site The Bay Citizen in San Fransisco.

(found via fishbowlLA)

Avoiding the "B" word

The news of MediaNews Group's pending bankruptcy hit with a whimper inside many of the group's own newspapers. Most of the MediaNews stories I scanned yesterday used vague headlines, eschewed analysis or expert opinion of any kind, and downplayed the word "bankruptcy." They also relied on a single source for their information, a press release from MediaNews chairman Dean Singleton, to describe the deal.

The Denver Post, for example, ran the headline "Pact lets Post owner cut debt." The story didn't mention bankruptcy until the third paragraph. The Salt Lake Tribune dug deep into the word jar to keep "bankruptcy" out of the headline: "Tribune owner's holding company agrees to 'prepackaged' financial restructuring." That headline screams, "Don't read me!"

The San Jose Mercury News also played the story small, as the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club observed:

The Mercury News ran the news that its parent company was about to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings on the bottom of the business page today. The headline, "Mercury News parent swaps debt for equity," was the smallest headline for a news story on the page, and it didn't mention the word bankruptcy. The first two paragraphs don't use the B word either. One line before the jump, the word "bankruptcy" can be found. In a letter to employees, CEO Dean Singleton said the "financial restructuring is a non event for readers and advertisers."

The Los Angeles Daily News, which ran a story written by the Torrance Daily Breeze, also used the "...parent swaps debt for equity" headline construction.

In the short term, the bankruptcy probably won't be noticed by readers, advertisers or newsrooms - and not just because of how the story was played. However, any time a business convinces lenders to take a $765 million hit the lenders will demand something in return. Now that the lenders own a stake in the newspaper chain, what kind of profit margins will they demand? Do they want to see MediaNews grow? Are they happy to be in the newspaper business? Or would they rather see the chain broken up and sold off? Time - and I hope some of these very same newspapers - will tell.

Battle for the Bay

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times both plan to launch a special edition targeting the San Francisco Bay Area, and both are poised to create other regional editions if the experiment by the Bay works out.

From the Times:

Both The Journal and The Times seem to be betting that the Bay Area is the place to try first. Its biggest newspapers, The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Jose Mercury-News, have suffered through some of the sharpest downsizing in the industry, and a very high percentage of the region’s residents moved from elsewhere, which usually means less attachment to the local paper. ...

“I think the San Francisco area is the most obvious market to try this in, because it’s big, it’s sophisticated and it’s getting progressively more poorly served by its papers,” said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute. But if the strategy takes off in multiple cities, he said, the national papers should worry that “they’d be seen as administering the final death blows to these metro dailies.”

In addition to the shrinking Bay Area papers, the Los Angeles Times has curbed its coverage of California as well.

Four in the evening

1. The nonprofit news outlet ProPublica has joined forces with Marketplace to do a comparison of the patchwork unemployment insurance programs across the United States - don't get fired in Mississippi if you can help it. ProPublica

2. The California State Parks Foundation has launched a campaign to stop Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from making real his threat to close up to 200 state parks as way to shave a little from the state's massive budget deficit. CSPF

3. The San Jose Mercury News has promoted Bert Robinson, 47, to be managing editor of the newspaper. He replaces David Satterfield, who left in November. SJMN

4. Another blow to the California ego: Census figures found the state ranks as the 16th lowest when it comes to Internet access for individuals. Capitol Alert

Mercury News workers approve contract

Employees at the San Jose Mercury News voted Monday to approve an austerity contract that includes substantial wage and benefit cuts aimed at heading off another round of layoffs at the already stricken newspaper. The vote was 127-79. The Mercury News reports:

The contract also allows the newspaper to move its copy editing and design operations to Walnut Creek and finance and circulation to San Ramon. Pay will be reduced by 7 percent for the remainder of this year, and an additional 2 percent starting on Jan. 1, 2010. Employees also took a one-week unpaid furlough earlier this year. The company can require another five-day furlough in 2010. ...

"This is a tough contract that will hurt a lot of our members, but it reflects the terrible situation that the news industry and the country is in," said San Jose Guild President Sylvia Ulloa, who was on the bargaining committee. "The committee did the best we could do to limit the damage to our members, minimize the loss of jobs and to try to maintain the quality of the Mercury News," she said.

Mercury News workers to consider austerity contract

The union representing employees at the San Jose Mercury News has negotiated a contract that offers major concessions to save money.

The contract, which will be voted on by secret ballot on Monday, includes a 7-percent pay cut (plus another two percent next year), five days of unpaid furlough, higher health care costs and a reduction in vacation accrual. The contract also allows owner MediaNews Group to consolidate copy desk functions with the company's Bay Area News Group (BANG), which includes the Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times.

From the Media Workers Guild:

As you know, it is a difficult period in the newspaper industry and the country. This contract settlement represents our best efforts at protecting workers, jobs and quality at the Mercury News. It is not something that we recommend lightly...

The folks at the SF Weekly aren't too impressed.

California's tireless Attorney General

Somehow a thief made off with two tires from Attorney General Jerry Brown's Toyota Prius Camry hybrid while the car was parked in front of Oakland City Hall. Did the thief leave the wheels? San Jose Mercury News

Tax collectors in blue

One more reason to be concerned that the public-safety mission of police is being supplanted by a revenue-generating mission. The cost of fix-tickets went up on Jan. 1 as a way to fund courthouse construction, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Fix-it tickets generally hit those who can least afford it. Add this to the list of violations California law enforcement will be on the lookout for as city, county and state revenues drop.

Mercury News asked to give up 15 percent

According to a letter posted on the Newspaper Guild's site, MediaNews negotiators have asked newsroom employees at the San Jose Mercury News to accept pay cuts of up to 15 percent and reduced benefits as a way to save the company money. Ad sales reps would also have to depend more on commissions.

Guild negotiators said they needed time to "fashion a response."

Singleton in the Times

The decline of the Los Angeles Times is an important media story, but if you want to know what the future of journalism looks like, take a gander at Dean Singleton's MediaNews empire. Fortunately, if belatedly, the New York Times does just that in a Sunday profile of the original cut-and-consolidater - a story no doubt inspired by the recent downgrading of MediaNews' debt.

Singleton sees silver linings in the grey clouds dumping on the newspaper industry. He's especially sanguine about the San Jose Mercucy News, which he says will bounce back once the economy turns around. Nevertheless, the story paints an appropriately grim picture of the state of things:

Already known for squeezing costs as hard as anyone in the industry, Mr. Singleton and his team have cut spending at a furious pace, trying to keep pace with tumbling revenue. His detractors among analysts and journalists concede that in this market, any owner would have to make deep cuts. But they say that he was already inclined to a slash-and-burn approach that is little more than a prescription for having the papers do steadily less, and do it less well.

“There’s no newspaper in the country that I know of that’s not suffering,” said John McManus, a journalism professor at San Jose State University. “But Dean Singleton has hollowed out The Mercury News.”

-snip-

Dave Butler, the executive editor, acknowledged that the paper no longer had the ambitions it once did. Now, he said, “we’re protecting the core mission, which is good, hard local news and information.”

I don't know anyone who works for Singleton who doesn't worry about more cuts, whether it be layoffs or the elimination of home delivery service on certain days.

From ME to PR

David Satterfield, managing editor of Singleton-owned San Jose Mercury News, has jumped ship and taken a job with the crisis PR firm Sitrick and Company. No replacement has been named.

Satterfield's departure raises questions about further cuts at the Bay Area paper. Last week, eight newsroom employees were targeted for termination at the Merc's sister papers, collectively known as the Bay Area News Group. Management agreed to a stay at the request of the guild.

Satterfield, 49, told his paper he made the move so he could keep his family in the area and "help grow a business." What does Sitrick do? From the firm's press release:

While best known for its communications work in sensitive situations, Sitrick And Company has extensive and successful practices in the more traditional areas of corporate, financial and transactional communications.

What does "sensitive situations" mean? The San Francisco Business Times helps clarify:

Sitrick specializes in crisis management among other areas. It represented former Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn [aka "The Boss Who Spied on Her Board"] in her fight over boardroom leaks, for example.

Someone has to spin the crazy for us.

Move 'em out

The San Jose Mercury News will consider selling its headquarters and moving into rental space to save money. Such moves are a tradition in the cut-and-consolidate MediaNews empire. The Long Beach Press-Telegram, L.A. Daily News and Torrance Daily Breeze are some of the most recent practitioners.

BANG publisher steps down*

MediaNews announced today that John Armstrong, president and publisher of the Bay Area News Group-East Bay, will step down as of October 17. David Rounds, vice president of circulation at the San Jose Mercury News, will replace Armstrong. That, and a few other personnel moves in the Bay Area, detailed here.

*UPDATE: Looks like this was more of a 'pushed out' than a 'stepped down.' As Armstrong tells his own Contra Costa Times:

BANG leadership "concluded that I didn't have the skill set that really was a good fit for the company as it moves forward," said Armstrong, a 45-year newspaper veteran who said he was told of the move last week.

Indeed, Armstrong rose from the editorial ranks and Rounds, his replacement, comes from circulation and advertising. If Southern California is any guide, this move is a harbinger of a further consolidation of operations among Singleton's East Bay papers. Already they share content, but look for them to consolidate copy desk and editorial functions, and then to reduce original content by producing core sections that will run in multiple papers - same features pages, same sports pages, same business pages, same inside-A pages (I'm sure some of this is happening now, especially at the smaller papers like the Hayward Daily Review and Fremont Argus, but I'd guess it will only accelerate).

From love to hate

Martin Gee has a final message for the San Jose Mercury News after getting "rightsized."

Cramming sessions

In the wake of the Zell-Michaels memo bomb, San Jose Mercury News Editor Dave Butler - formerly of the LA Daily News - delivers a memo of his own (via Romenesko). He has some helpful advice for the wordsmiths on his staff, given the rising price of newsprint:

It has never been more important than it is today for all reporters and editors to demonstrate their outstanding writing and reporting skills by cramming the same information – or what's essential for the story -- in less space.

As reporters go about the job of squeezing more information into less space, they can rest assured there will be no more layoffs, probably:

We are doing all that we can to limit any newsroom staff reductions to attrition. So far, so good, though I can make no promises.