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.

Layoffs in San Gabriel Valley

At least five, and as many as seven, newsroom employees have lost their jobs in the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. Layoff notices went to three from the copy desk, one photographer, and the city editor at the Pasadena Star-News.

The layoffs come as the papers' owner, Denver-based MediaNews Group, is being asked to up its offer for the Orange County Register.

The newspaper group includes the Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Whittier Daily News.

Bill Bell, editor and soul of the Whittier Daily News, is dead

Bill Bell, former editor and columnist at the Whittier Daily News, has died of complications from a stroke. He was 77 years old.

Whittier Daily News editor Tim Traeger has the obituary:

Bell cut his journalistic teeth in hardscrabble and hard-drinking newsrooms like the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. 

He covered the Watts Riots in 1965, the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 and the 1971 Sylmar Earthquake. One of his biggest stories was the 1987 Whittier Narrows Earthquake, which leveled buildings in Uptown and caused millions of dollars in damages.
-snip- 

After his stint at the Tribune, Bell was hired as editor of the Victor Valley Daily Press in 1975 and he moved his burgeoning family to Apple Valley. When that paper was sold in 1979, Bell worked for various weekly publications in Hesperia and Apple Valley before being hired as editor of the Whittier Daily News in 1982. 

For Bell, it was both a homecoming and a salvation. He battled alcoholism and often credited Whittier with saving his life. He gave up alcohol for good upon the birth of his first grandchild, Sarah, in 1984.

Employee remembrances here and here.

Baeder steps down at SGVN

Ben Baeder has stepped down as deputy managing editor of the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, which includes, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News and Whittier Daily News. Baeder decided to leave the paper shortly after last month's layoffs at the Tribune were announced. His final day is today.

Baeder took the editing job in May, 2008 after a hiatus from newspapers. He'd been a reporter at the Tribune before that. I'm told he's leaving the newspaper profession once again.

Rebecca Kimitch, a political reporter at the Tribune, is slated to take over some of Baeder's editing duties.

Small gains in the SGV

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Whittier Daily News reported small circulation gains in the last six months, according to the latest ABC numbers. The Tribune, which didn't report on last year's circulation losses, carried a story yesterday about the increases:

[The] Whittier Daily News posted a total paid daily circulation of 14,129 in March, up 3.5 percent from 13,645 a year earlier, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune's daily circulation rose 0.5 percent to 36,041 compared with 35,867 in March of last year.

The third paper in the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, the Pasadena Star-News, saw circulation slip 0.3 percent to 25,410.

Late circulation update

Back in October, I posted the circulation numbers for most of L.A. County's daily newspapers. I wasn't able to get numbers for two of the papers until now. Here's the update:

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune saw its weekday circulation fall to 33,387, down from 37,594 a year ago. That's an 11 percent drop. The Whittier Daily News fell to 13,076 from 14,563, a decline of 10 percent.

A small sliver of a silver lining: The Pasadena Star-News saw a 1 percent increase in Sunday circulation and the Whittier Daily News saw a 2 percent increase.

A new kind of deadline

The folks at the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group are serious about their time cards. Here's a memo sent yesterday to editorial employees:

Time cards are due tomorrow at 5:00 pm. If I do not receive your time cards, you will receive written warning in your files and disciplinary action up to and including termination will begin.

Whittier striken with oil fever

Struggling with the loss of tax-producing auto malls and retail outlets, the city of Whittier wants to turn back the clock to an old way of striking it rich. From the Wall Street Journal:

The five biggest car dealerships here went belly up in the space of a year. The Mervyns department store was liquidated. And the city is so strapped for cash it has pulled the plug on its Fourth of July fireworks.

But now this Los Angeles suburb thinks it has found the answer to its troubles: It's going to drill, baby, drill.

It's not unusual to see working oil derricks in the midst of L.A.'s suburban sprawl. A century ago, Whittier was dotted with oil wells, but that came to an end in 1993, the WSJ reports, when Chevron turned its field over to the city. Hard times and high oil prices provided Mayor Bob Henderson with a revelation:

"I was sitting at home, just idly thinking about this possibility of oil drilling and suddenly thought: 'Oh, my God, when I purchased the old Chevron property, we demanded they give us the oil rights.'"

The demand was made so Whittier could convert the area into a wilderness preserve. Says Mr. Henderson: "It's home to an awful lot of animals -- bobcats, coyotes, hundreds of birds."

The Whittier Daily News reported yesterday that a Santa Barbara company filed for permission to drill in the city. Officials think they can earn about $5 million a year from the operations.

More on the San Gabriel Valley blood bath *(Update), **(Update II), ***(Update III), ****(Update IV)

I now have a better idea of the scope of the cuts being made at Singleton's three San Gabriel Valley papers. At least 10 editorial positions will be eliminated before the day is out. Another 20 pink slips are scheduled to be delivered in the other departments.

So far, I've confirmed five newsroom cuts: two reporters, one from the Pasadena Star-News and one from the features desk; a page designer at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune; an editorial assistant at the Whittier Daily News, and the Tribune's librarian.

It doesn't look like any other reporters will lose their jobs today, but there are still more cuts to come (see updates).

Meantime, heads are rolling at the San Bernardino County Sun and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. I know of at least one photographer and one writer who have gotten the axe.

Back in the San Gabriel Valley, anxiety among the reporters is running high, especially for those people working in the outlying offices (the management is holed up at the Tribune headquarters in West Covina, with the Star-News and Daily News treated as quasi-bureaus). Thus far, the management has been largely, if not completely, silent.

All of the newsroom cuts should be completed by the end of today, I'm told. However, employees should be prepared for a major announcement of some kind tomorrow.

*An anonymous commenter says that both the finance and marketing directors were let go.

**Two more cuts in editorial to report: A long-time photographer fell under the axe, as did a reporter/copy editor for the sports page. Both contributed to all three papers. Reports of boxes being filled and crying across the Tribune offices.

***Comments are coming in about the various cuts being made to the Inland Empire properties. Also, Fred Hamilton, publisher and CEO of SGVN, sent out a memo concerning the "restructuring" going on today.

Here's the meat of it: "This restructuring will help us to operate better and position us to grow revenues in our core newspapers, new custom products and on the Internet. In simplest terms, we're being as creative as possible in a really tough economy. Indeed, these are difficult times for many industries, including newspapers, and as part of our reorganization, there will be some job losses at all of our Inland Division properties. But we also feel, very strongly, that the steps we're taking will position us to reverse our business trends and grow our company again."

The company is "flattening the management structure" of its so-called Inland Division as part of the shakeup. Steve Lambert, who once headed the San Bernardino Sun, will stay on as VP of news for LANG. The memo says he is part of a team that will "take us boldly into the future."

****If the comments on this link are true, and the directors of finance, marketing and circulation (not classified, as I originally put) at the SGVN papers are now gone, that suggest a consolidation of operations between all five "Inland Division" papers. It would fit with Fred Hamilton being named publisher and CEO and his comments about "flattening the management structure." That would make the Sun the mothership for papers east of the 110 Freeway.

• Just got back home and saw that the comments section has blown up. I'm glad people are taking the time to speak their minds. However, while I'm big on free speech, I'd rather not become a vector for personal attacks.