Buyouts in Denver

The Denver Post wants at least 20 newsroom staffers to take buyouts as a way to cut costs. This would represent 8 percent of newsroom employees. If the plan falls short, layoffs could follow.

Four in the morning

1. Liberal columnist Frank Rich bails on New York Times, goes to New York magazine. NY

2. A map of 17 "muckraking" bloggers having an impact on world affairs. Daily Beast

3. The Denver Post continues to sue bloggers for using its content without permission - and catches a destitute writer in its dragnet. Westword

4. Los Angeles Times reporters Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives win the Seldin Ring Award for Investigative Reporting for their city of Bell stories. USC

Singleton: "the news side is my real passion"

Westword has a lengthy interview with Dean Singleton, who cites health issues and his age as the reason he decided to step down CEO of MediaNews Group. Singleton will stay on as executive chairman of the company and serve as publisher of the Denver Post and Salt Lake Tribune.

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.

Singleton to step down as MediaNews CEO*

There's a massive shakeup in the boardroom of MediaNews Group. Chairman and CEO Dean Singleton has announced he will relinquish his position atop what is now the second-largest newspaper chain in the country. Singleton, who has come to symbolize aggressive cost cutting, consolidation and cheapness in the newspaper industry, will become executive chairman of the company.

Additionally, President Joseph Lodovic said he will resign, effective immediately. An interim president has been named in his place.

MediaNews has launched a search to replace the two men.

From the Denver Post:

MediaNews also said it will launch a search for the newly created position of chief revenue officer. Michael Sileck, a MediaNews director, will serve in that position on an interim basis.

"In light of the significant opportunities and challenges we and the industry are facing, our company is best served by having separate executives focus their full efforts on both the strategic landscape, and on implementing an effective plan to expand our revenue streams and meet our operational and efficiency goals," Singleton said in a statement.

MediaNews also named three new directors: Heath Freeman, Bruce Schnelwar and Eric Krauss.

*Update: The Post article does not offer any background on the three new directors. According to Silicon Valley Business Journal, Freeman is managing director of Alden Global Capital; Schelwar is executive vice president and chief financial officer of Smith Management LLC as well as managing director of Alden Global Capital, and Krauss is chief financial officer of Action Sports Inc.

When financiers get put in charge, and a chief revenue officer is hired, one can be fairly certain that the banks that helped bail the company out of last year's bankruptcy are not happy with performance. As I wrote in March, "Bank of America and the other major creditors probably won't be very patient about seeing returns on their investment after forgiving [$765 million of] debt." And, apparently, they weren't.

What this means for a company that already has furloughs and a vacation freeze on tap is hard to know. Further consolidation almost seems impossible - nevertheless, that's the plan. And Singleton will be in charge. Here's the company press release, explaining Singleton's role now that he has more free time on his hands:

...focus on opportunities to optimize the company’s portfolio of properties and consolidation opportunities in the newspaper industry.

Porfolios are rarely optimized through investment and adding newsroom staff.

Singleton hires muscle to enforce intellectual property rights

Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group has hired a Las Vegas firm to file legal challenges against what the newspaper company defines as copyright infringement. Wired magazine reports:

Las Vegas–based Righthaven was formed this spring for the sole purpose of acquiring copyrights and suing to financially benefit from allegedly misappropriated intellectual property. It has filed more than 180 suits on behalf of Stephens Media’s Las Vegas Review-Journal, and has now begun suing on behalf of Denver-based MediaNews Group, which owns the San Jose Mercury News, the Denver Post and about two dozen other outlets.

Righthaven’s initial lawsuit on behalf of the Denver Post, first reported by the Las Vegas Sun, came three weeks after the paper published online a “notice to readers about Denver Post copyright protections.” The five-paragraph notice said the newspaper’s work “is illegally reproduced everyday on websites across the country.” The company wrote it was acceptable for blogs to “reproduce no more than a headline and up to a couple of paragraphs or summary of the story.”

The crackdown promises to get more aggressive as MediaNews prepares to build paywalls around its newspaper sites.

Bankruptcy plan for MediaNews Group approved

A Delaware bankruptcy judge has approved a Chapter 11 reorganization plan for MediaNews Group, despite a trio of objections from the newspaper company's creditors.

From the Denver Post:

The plan, approved by judge Kevin J. Carey of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, reduces the company's debt from $930 million to $165 million and paves the way for the company to emerge from Chapter 11 six weeks after filing.

Four in the evening

1. Inflating balloon boy: The Heene family in Colorado seem to be getting the attention they craved as the media continues to cover the boy who wasn't in the balloon. Denver Post

2. Around the bases: Michael Massing takes on Howard Kurtz for taking on the Obama administration for taking on Fox. CJR

3. Poor information diet: Howard Weaver warns us about the troubling trend of "infobesity". Etaoin Shrdlu

4. Words, words, words (dot com): A software engineer leaves the New York Times to build the "dictionary of the future." NYO

You know it's really over when...

About 200 employees with the Colorado State Court Administrator's Office will move into the space once occupied by the Rocky Mountain News this weekend, the Denver Business Journal reports. The Mountain News, which closed in February, was housed on the fifth floor of the Denver Newspaper Agency Tower, home to the Denver Post and the Post's owner, MediaNews Group.

Furlough fever

In a "special report," Joe Strupp at Editor & Publisher looks at the furlough trend that swept through many newspaper chains earlier this year, as already decimated newsrooms looked for ways to save money without more layoffs:

In nearly every case, at least where furloughs are concerned, guild members have to approve the unpaid time off in order for it to take effect. Most guilds are going along with the idea, at least for the moment, with many members saying their newsrooms have been cut enough and don't want to have to work in a further depleted office — or worse, lose their jobs.

"It is the best of a terrible range of options," says Tom Spalding, president of the Indianapolis Newspaper Guild and a business reporter at the Gannett-owned Indianapolis Star. "You keep your job, your insurance, and the pay cut is not permanent."

-snip-

But while many of those affected are willing to give up a little here and there to keep their jobs, the impact of cut salaries, frozen retirement funds and unpaid time off takes a psychological toll. "People come out of this very conflicted," says Jane Halpert, a psychologist who specializes in work-related issues at De Paul University. "They see all of the people who are losing their jobs and they still have a job, but at the same time they are being nickeled and dimed. And the paper tries to present this as a good thing — more days off. But it is not a vacation; it is temporary short-term unemployment."

Strupp goes on to report that unions increasingly demand newspaper owners open the books before they'll agree to absorb more benefit cuts. After the guild at the Denver Post combed through Dean Singleton's financials, they agreed to wage cuts of 6% to 9% and seven-day furloughs in each of the next three years.

Contraction

The Denver Post has cut home delivery to most outlying areas in Colorado on all days but Sunday. AP

Plans for Denver news site stall

Efforts to launch InDenver Times, an online news site that would be staffed by former employees of the Rocky Mountain News, appear to have stalled after prospective financial backers walked away from negotiations. The Denver Post reports that "employees want to go on with the site and will search for new backers," although they've dropped the awkward name. According to the story, investors felt a staff of 30 was just too large. (Denver Post via Romenesko)

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.”

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."

The rant of a Boulder congressman

As the left laughs at the Republican Party's show of obedience to conservative talk radio, they might want to start worrying about the hubris of some in the progressive blogosphere who seem giddy at the prospect of starring in their own political puppet theater routine.

From the Denver Post:

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who made his fortune selling greeting cards and flowers online, gave a shout-out to the blogosphere Saturday, giving it — and himself — credit for the "demise" of traditional journalism.

"I have to say, that when we say, 'Who killed the Rocky Mountain News,' we're all part of it, for better or worse, and I argue it's mostly for the better," Polis said at the Netroots Nation in Your Neighborhood event in Westminster, according to a recording posted online. The group supports progressive politics.

"The media is dead, and long live the new media, which is all of us," said Polis, a Boulder Democrat.

Four in the morning

Furloughs in Florida

Layoffs in Denver (Post's managing editor included)

What should journalists do? Wait

What we're willing to pay for

Double up

The Denver Newspaper Agency, which oversees business operations at the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post, now says it wants to cut $35 million in expenses. Earlier reports said the company wanted a mere $18 million.

Rough draft

A letter to advertisers saying that the Denver Post will be the only newspaper in town as of March 1 is merely a ... test, according to the agency that oversees the joint operating agreement between the Post and the Rocky Mountain News. Just like pre-writing an obituary, I guess.

From the chopping block

Speaking in Davos, Rupert Murdoch called for "drastic action" to quell the credit crisis. Meantime, Portfolio reports that Murdoch's Wall Street Journal will trim 50 employees from the newsroom.

The Austin American-Statesman, owned by Cox Enterprises, will offer early retirement to anyone over age 55. The paper expects to shed about 45 employees from its 906 person staff. Cox has put the newspaper up for sale and bidders include the owner of the bankrupt Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News want a divorce.

Rocky Mountain dispute

Scripps, owner of the Rocky Mountain News, has accused MediaNews Group, owner of the Denver Post, of violating their joint operating agreement. Scripps alleges MediaNews borrowed $13 million from joint operating funds to make payroll at the Post.

From the RMN:

"We request that this practice cease and that the Post find a way to fund its editorial payroll without resorting to this . . .," Scripps executives Rich Boehne and Mark Contreras wrote.

The letter was dated Dec. 9, five days after Scripps announced it would sell the Rocky and would pursue other options, including closure, if it couldn't find a buyer.

"We continue to reserve our rights to pursue remedies for the several breaches caused by these practices or to assert them in connection with any future legal proceedings," they added in the letter sent to top Post executives Dean Singleton and Joseph "Jody" Lodovic.

-snip-

The payroll issue, previously undisclosed, sheds new light on Scripps' decision to seek an exit from the Denver market and its partnership with the highly leveraged MediaNews, which owns The Post.

The companies are each losing roughly $4 million per quarter as the newspaper industry nationally continues a rapid deterioration, based on the most recent public financial filings by Scripps. The agency, which handles business functions for the two newspapers, has a $130 million bank loan that it's attempting to renegotiate.

Speculation

Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews, visited the Los Angeles Daily News on Friday. Except for anonymous conjecture in the comments section for this post, I've heard nothing concrete about what he said or proposed or ordered, if anything.

LA Observed referenced some newsroom scuttlebutt about publishing the Daily News on fewer days. There's the universal copy desk concept still looming, with LANG's Inland Division merging copy desks as early as this month and the remaining three papers following in April.

Whether further cuts or more profound changes are required might depend a great deal on the outcomes of union negotiations with the newsroom guilds in Denver and San Jose, the fate of the Rocky Mountain News, and the financial health of Hearst.