Sunday resurrection and roundup

Billionaires to the rescue? 

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has an opinion piece calling on the deep pocketed to assist daily newspapers in their struggle to keep communities informed. 

I don't know. This feels too late and short sighted, since newspaper owners who think they know how to survive the game are usually the first to find out how little they really know.

Just ask the people working there: Romenesko. 

At this point, big checks would seem to do more to stave off the inevitable than rescue an industry that for too long lacked the humility to break up bad management structures. Instead it gutted newsrooms to ensure those at the top got their legacy pensions.

As scary fast as changes are coming now, it feels as if the corporate lamentations that pitted bottom lines against journalistic values have started to quiet. The stagnant business culture is starting to face its mortality. New lines of thought are sprouting.

Our job is to keep pushing the principles of good journalism (SCOTUSblog has gotten well-deserved attention today for doing just that) and hope the new business models coalesce around them.

Because with the big-check largesse of a single person or foundation comes demands. Look at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, which must contend with the singular benevolence of billionaire businessman and art (institution) collector Eli Broad: WWLA. 

Does this mean the L.A. Times should turn the $1-million grant from the Ford Foundation? No. But the survival of news gathering institutions is going to depend on the largesse of lots of little checks: donors, members, subscribers, listeners, readers, watchers. 

Press-Enterprise editor heads to Tennessee

Maria De Varenne will become the executive editor of The Tennessean after 10 years as editor of the Press-Enteprise in Riverside. Nels Jensen will takeover duties at the P-E.

Union-Tribune sold

Platinum Equity has turned around and sold the San Diego Union-Tribune two years after buying the newspaper. The new owner will be a real estate company MLIM, owned by Doug Manchester, reports The Wrap. Now, real estate entrepreneurs and newspapers don't always mix well (see here), but Manchester does have the advantage of being local.

Voice of San Diego had this to say in a story presaging the sale:

If Manchester bought the newspaper outright, he'd get a key piece of property that local real estate analysts have said was a valuable part of the Union-Tribune's 2009 sale to Platinum: The company's main building, which sits on 13 acres in Mission Valley, just south of the Fashion Valley mall.

Layoffs at the Press-Enterprise

The Press-Enterprise in Riverside on Tuesday cut several newsroom staffers Tuesday. At least one of the names I was originally given turned out to be incorrect, so I've removed the information from this post until I can confirm exactly who was laid off.

(this post was updated)

Two more gone from Press-Telegram

Long Beach Press-Telegram city editor John Futch and sports writer Doug Krikorian received layoff notices last week as part of the consolidation efforts between that paper and the Daily Breeze/Daily News. Krikorian was offered a freelance slot but declined.

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.

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 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.

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)

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.

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.

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.)

Long Beach Press-Telegram update

Three newsroom employees at the Long Beach Press-Telegram lost jobs this week as their departments were absorbed into the Daily Breeze. According to the Long Beach Post, sports columnist Frank Burlison and photographers Steven Georges and Diandra Jay received pink slips. (This post clarifies an earlier post.)

One big BANG

MediaNews Group owns two clusters of newspapers in California: the Los Angeles Newspaper Group (LANG) and the Bay Area News Group (BANG). In the past decade, mergers and consolidation have turned the individual papers into something of a news blob, with each newsroom producing its own pages in semi-autonomous fashion, but often sharing substantial resources, including inside news and business pages, copy editors, photo, and advertising.

The Bay Area News Group, which owns newspapers in the East Bay, Silicon Valley and San Jose, has finally shed the pretension of autonomy and has named itself a single editorial entity.

According to a memo obtained by blogger Richard Brenneman, the BANG papers, led by editor Dave Butler, will now share a single managing editor for print, Bert Robinson, and a single managing for online, breaking news and photography, Randall Keith. Robinson and Keith served in similar capacities at the BANG flagship, the San Jose Mercury News.

Sports, photo and business will similarly fall under a single BANG editor.

This will mean more sharing of content between papers, though it's not clear if further staff cuts will follow. The papers, which include the Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times, will retain their editorial boards to run opinion and commentary.

From the memo:

Beginning today, we are taking another significant step in streamlining our organization to maximize our operating efficiency. Continuing the process that began with the creation of the Bay Area News Group, the news divisions of all Bay Area News Group newspapers will now operate under a single, common management team under the direction of Dave Butler, editor of the Mercury News and vice president for news for MediaNews Group. This move follows similar consolidations in our other divisions. 

Dave’s appointment and the announcement of the first official BANG-wide news management team are logical next steps in our efforts to make full use of the breadth and depth of the entire group. While a less-formal arrangement has been in place for some time, our recently negotiated labor agreements recognize complete consolidation. 

This reorganization will have an immediate impact on top management, and it’s with regret that we also announce that [BANG Executive Editor] Kevin Keane and [BANG-Easy Bay Managing Editor] Pete Wevurski are leaving the company today. Please join with me in thanking them for their years of service and wishing them well in their new adventures.

The rest of the memo is here.

Other LANG layoffs

In addition to the seven people who lost jobs in LANG's San Gabriel Valley group, I'm told the Los Angeles Daily News cut a position in its circulation department, and three or more newsroom staffers at the Long Beach Press-Telegram were laid off. I believe the PT layoffs are part of a consolidation plan announced in April, but I'm still awaiting details.

Update on layoffs in the San Gabriel Valley

Here's an update on the layoffs at the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group: Seven people total lost their jobs: two of them were on the business side, five from the newsroom. The affected newsroom employees are Hector Gonzalez, Eric Reed, Karen Lee, Coye Sloan and Steve Wytucki.

Add: Gonzalez was the city editor at the Pasadena Star-News, one of the three papers in the SGVN chain. His position will not be filled. Metro Editor Frank Girardot will continue as the primary editor for the paper.

Fact-finders as artifacts

Chris Hedges take his turn trying to articulate what's being lost as newspaper newsrooms shrink:

We are losing a peculiar culture and an ethic. This loss is impoverishing our civil discourse and leaving us less and less connected to the city, the nation and the world around us. The death of newsprint represents the end of an era. And news gathering will not be replaced by the Internet. Journalism, at least on the large scale of old newsrooms, is no longer commercially viable. Reporting is time-consuming and labor-intensive. It requires going out and talking to people. It means doing this every day. It means looking constantly for sources, tips, leads, documents, informants, whistle-blowers, new facts and information, untold stories and news. Reporters often spend days finding little or nothing of significance. The work can be tedious and is expensive. And as the budgets of large metropolitan dailies shrink, the very trade of reporting declines. Most city papers at their zenith employed several hundred reporters and editors and had operating budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The steady decline of the news business means we are plunging larger and larger parts of our society into dark holes and opening up greater opportunities for unchecked corruption, disinformation and the abuse of power.