Happy Double Ten Day, everyone. In Taiwan, they’re setting off firecrackers, dancing in the streets and still fretting about the loss of the mainland.

Tampa Bay Tribune: “Um, Never Mind.”

Tampa Bay residents took a break from following the success of their hometown baseball team to scream bloody murder about recent changes to the hometown newspaper. The Tampa Bay Tribune redesigned just one week ago, collapsing multiple news sections into a single main section and reorganizing several features. The paper also broadly cut the length of news stories.

The changes apparently didn’t sit well with readers, some 300 of whom canceled subscriptions while 10 times that many called or wrote letters of protest. “Apparently the folks who came up with the idea for New Coke have finally found employment designing newspapers,” read one letter.

Tribune executive editor Janet Coats listened, and it didn’t take long for her to issue a mea culpa and to promise immediate changes, including a return to sections. “People want sports in a separate section. . . they want to be able to hand sections around. Turns out, we had really disrupted the way people communicate with each other in the morning,” says Eric Deggans’ account on TampaBay.com.

Give the Tribune credit for thinking outside the box, for listening and for responding quickly to comments. In atmosphere of crisis, institutions don’t have the luxury of researching their decisions to death, and they shouldn’t have the arrogance to stick with them in the face of strongly negative reaction. We believe the Tribune will get brownie points from its readers for listening, which it richly deserves, because it must’ve been a helluva rough week in that newsroom.

Miscellany

Journalism iconoclast Patrick Thornton asks readers to take themselves back 10 years and describe how they would do journalism differently. Always perceptive commentator Tim Windsor responds with a 15-point laundry list of suggestions, many of which would work just as well today. There are a few disconnects in Windsor’s commentary – mySQL was barely known in 1998 — but his advice is sound for publishers who still talk about “eyeballs” and “lock-in.” (via Mark Hamilton)

A comment posted on Gannett Blog notes that revenues at USA Today are running 11% under plan on a budget of 1% under plan. “Someone has to make up for that 10 percent difference,” the anonymous commenter writes. “That is not even taking into account a prospective collapse in Christmas advertisements.” USA Today employees are wondering if they should file for back overtime pay given the likelihood of layoffs.

Newsosaur Alan Mutter has a creative idea for the growing ranks of newspapers that are scrapping unprofitable Monday editions and scaling back to six days a week. Why not create a special interest edition on a popular topic like sports and deliver it free on Mondays instead? The savings achieved by axing a single edition don’t amount to much in light of the formidable fixed costs that most newspapers maintain, Mutter says. Newspapers would be better off swallowing the modest incremental cost of continuing to publish on Mondays while giving readers a product they really want and salespeople something exciting to sell. It makes sense to us.

The Wall Street Journal confirms speculation that the New York Times will shut down the web site of sister paper International Herald Tribune and host the news instead on a co-branded “global edition” of NYTimes.com. The Journal also reports that the Houston Chronicle will lay off 10 employees after failing to reach its goal of 90 volunteers for a buyout program. (via Romenesko)

The UK’s Express Newspapers group has been so shaken by circulation declines that it has sharply cut back on staff and taken to letting some reporters post their stories directly to the printed page. The resulting gaffes prompted one unidentified staff member to send a sharp rebuke to his colleagues about their sloppiness — including a reference to a couple from Wales as being English and a description of an island as “floating” (islands don’t float) — and to identify 20 serious errors in the most recent Sunday edition. Rival Guardian gleefully tells all.

And Finally…

Back in May we marked the launch of a new blog called Praying for Papers, with the stated purpose of encouraging “anyone who is touched by this shift in our industry to include it each day in their prayer life.” Having noted its launch, we feel compelled to point out that the most recent post was on July 11, when author Mike Koehler said he was going on vacation. We haven’t heard from him since. Either he’s having a great vacation, his prayers have been answered, or he’s given up hope. We’re not sure which.

Into the perfect storm of Internet competition, spiraling newsprint costs and the decline of classified advertising has come a fourth factor: probable worldwide recession. It couldn’t happen at a worse time for the beleaguered newspaper industry.

Newspaper advertising revenue is expected to decline a record 11.5% to $40.1 billion this year, the Newspaper Association of America says. The organization does see light at the end of the tunnel; it’s predicting that the nosedive will level off a bit in 2009. But such forecasts should probably be taken with a grain of salt, considering that no one knows the full extent of the current financial crisis or the likelihood that worldwide government interventions will succeed. Also consider, at Tim Windsor points out in a comment on the E&P blog, that the NAA initially forecast just a 1.2% decline in business this year.

The 11.5% revenue drop would be the largest the association has seen since it started tracking results 58 years ago, and it reflects the continuing collapse of the classified advertising market at the hands of Craigslist et. al. In fact, the NAA expects classified revenues to fall from $14.1 billion in 2007 to just $9.4 billion in 2009, a 33% crash in a business that is already off by 50% from its peak. Retail advertising is expected to decline about 10% and national advertising should drop 13% in the same time period. Online revenue won’t pick up much of the slack: the NAA forecasts meager growth of 1.8% this year.

Media Life magazine catches up with David T. Clark, senior research analyst for publishing and advertising at Deutsche Bank Securities, to get his take on the wreckage. Here are a few quotes:

“This is a pivotal time for the newspaper-retailer relationship…Share losses now will be amplified when we emerge from this downturn.”

“Newspapers must be perceived as a marketplace in which the advertising is considered content, not clutter.”

“I think we’ve got at least several more quarters of very steep industry ad revenue declines to go before we see much improvement.”

“Newspapers do digital pretty well, but…it doesn’t look like a viable business model will emerge in time to save some metro dailies…They are at the bleeding edge of the structural issues the industry faces…Metro papers over-index to classified advertising, which is disappearing fast….They need to variabilize as much of their costs as possible, get all of that old media hardware off of the balance sheet…Tough to sell a printing press these days, though.”

Desert Storm

The East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Ariz. will make massive cutbacks, laying off 142 people, or about 40% of its staff. The daily will also withdraw coverage from nearby Scottsdale and Tempe and scale back to four days a week, most likely Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The print format will also be scaled back to two  sections ‑ one for local news and one for sports, entertainment and late-breaking news.The Tribune has a paid and free distribution of around 100,000. It’s owned by Freedom Communications, a publisher of more than 100 mostly small newspapers and a few big ones, including the Orange County Register. Ray Stern analyzes the impact on the valley, including the huge loss the cutbacks represent to the city of Scottsdale, which may become the US’ largest major metro area without a daily newspaper.He also lists some of the prominent journalists who will be exiting the scene.

Spokane Spokesman-Review Girds for More Cuts

The Spokane Spokesman-Review, whose editor quit last week over cutbacks in his staff, named Gary Graham to the post. Publisher W. Stacey Cowles took some questions from staffers and offered little optimism about the immediate future. His responses are noted on a staff blog. Highlights:

• The S-R “is planning for the possibility of not having” the Associates Press in the future.
• Potential cost-cutting measures include a reduction in trim size reduction (next June), dropping some circulation routes in outlying areas, reconfiguring press runs and office space consolidation. The paper is likely to close its Spokane Valley bureau.
• “The company would like more flexibility in compensation of newsroom employees, more flexibility to change compensation to reflect market rates.” In other words, pay cuts are likely.

Tumbleweeds in Albany

The New York Times writes of the impact of staff cuts on the press corps covering goings-on in Albany. With the closure of the New York Sun last week, five newspapers have exited the state capitol in less than two years. The organization of statehouse journalists in Albany has seen its ranks dwindle from 59 members in 1981 to 42 journalists last year. “With the exception of Buffalo, Watertown and Albany itself, no city outside the New York metropolitan area has a newspaper with a dedicated, full-time correspondent in the Capitol,” writes Jeremy Peters. Wire-service bureau reporters don’t offer the local angle that correspondents used to provide. Reporters who once jostled for desk space now have their pick. “It’s like tumbleweed should be blowing around here,” says one reporter. Observers fret that the cutbacks are leaving legislators to play in their own private sandbox withoutthe limits of citizen oversight.

Layoff Log

• More cutbacks at the Los Angeles Times. LA Observed is reporting that the paper will cut 75 positions, which would bring total newsroom staffing to about 650. That’s down from a high of nearly 1,200 in 2001. The reductions will be achieved through buyouts, if possible, but staffers will be told that this round of cutbaks will be their last chance to get a package of two weeks’ pay for each year of service. Media Bisto says the Washington bureau will be cut back right after the election.  American Thinker comments“More and more unemployed left wing journalists are joining the sans culottes. History teaches us that unemployed intellectuals are fodder for revolutionary movements.” (via Edward Padgett)
• The Cleveland Plain Dealer plans to cut 38 unionized newsroom jobs, or about 13 percent of the newsroom’s staff. Most of the jobs being eliminated are held by Guild members. Employees have until Nov. 20 to accept a buyout offer, with layoffs expected to make up the difference. The Plain Dealer, which has 299 newsroom employees, cut 64 journalist jobs in 2006. The actual reductions are somewhat below the rumors of 20% cutbacks that circulated in June.
• Boulder’s Daily Camera is moving all of its remaining printing and packaging operations from Boulder to Denver and laying off 29 more workers by the end of October.The paper will now be printed at the Denver Newspaper Agency facilities, where the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News have recently taken up residence.

And Finally…

The industry downturn has claimed one of the world’s most famous journalists – and he isn’t even a real person. Rick Redfern, the resident ink-stained wretch of the Doonesbury comic strip for more than 30 years, has decided to accept a buyout. “Redfern leaves with utter resignation, apparently having reasoned that he has no real newsroom options,” writes The Washington Post‘s Michael Cavna. “Thanks for the 30-plus years, Rick. By the fourth panel — in the style of a true newspaperman — you always had the perfect line.”

Philip Meyer

Philip Meyer, whose 2004 book The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age, is often credited as being the first to predict the newspaper industry’s demise, writes in American Journalism Review of the dwindling options available to newspaper owners. In a superbly readable essay, Meyer frames the industry’s plight in historical contexts ranging from Gutenberg’s displacement of town criers to the opportunities modern agriculture created for packaged food makers. At the heart of the problem is one statistic we hadn’t seen before: “Classified ads moved from 18 percent of newspaper advertising revenue in 1950 to 40 percent in 2000.” Craig Newmark came along and poof! There are plenty of other Craig Newmarks out there waiting their turns, Meyer writes, ominously.

The good news is that there’s precedent for these problems. Meyer suggests that the saving grace for newspapers – and probably the only one they have left – is community influence. That’s where local news organizations enjoy a level of trust that online wannabes can’t approach. But by community, “I don’t mean stenographic coverage of public meetings, channeling press releases or listing unanalyzed collections of facts,” Meyer writes. It means contextual reporting that delivers useful and actionable advice. Medium is unimportant, as is frequency. Meyer infers that the seven-day-a-week mandate is a liability in a time of fluid and inexpensive information. Discerning readers will pay for information that speaks to their specific interests, he proposes, but newspapers have got to start by rejecting their all-things-to-all-people philosophy.

Tribune Co.: One Big Litigious Family

A group of current and former Tribune Co. employees has filed a class action suit against CEO Sam Zell, questioning the tactics Zell used to acquired Tribune Co. in a highly leveraged deal, his administration of the employee stock option plan, his decisions regarding layoffs and other operational issues. The plaintiffs include one current Tribune employee – Los Angeles Times auto critic Dan Neil – and five former employees, all journalists. They’re represented by noted class-action lawyers Joseph Cotchett and Philip Gregory.  In a statement, Zell called the suit “frivolous and unfounded.” In an e-mail to employees, he lamented the plaintiffs’ decision to air dirty laundry in public and concluded, “We are partners. We need to act like it.” Tell Zell characteristically minces no words in attacking the boss: “We have no power. We have no say. We have never been consulted in a single action that you or any of your cronies have taken in dismantling the Tribune Co. So stop f*****g call me your partner.” Guess who won’t be sharing a table at the company picnic.

Layoff Log

• The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has laid off between 17 and 20 people, depending on which account you read. The situation is particularly unpleasant in the Gateway City because the cuts come during talks with the Newspaper Guild about an extension to the current union contract. In fact, the Guild walked away from the bargaining table, charging that newspaper management and consistently pushed ahead the timeframe for the layoffs as a bargaining tactic. Among the victims is Patrick M. O’Connell, the newspaper’s primary crime reporter.
• The bloodletting may not be over at The McClatchy Co. CEO Gary Pruitt was quoted last week saying, “It may get worse before it gets better.” McClatchy is still reeling from the $2 billion in debt it took on to finance the 2006 acquisition of Knight-Ridder, a deal that still has questionable long-term value. “It’s hard to claim it’s a good deal when you see the stock performance,” Pruitt said. McClatchy has already cut its workforce by 20% and halved its shareholder dividend. McClatchy Watch has the details.
• Tulsa World posts a note to readers about consolidating Sunday sections that presages staff cuts. It notes that the staff has been working “to conserve news space and reduce the overall page count of the newspaper by writing shorter stories,” and that, “We are proud of the fact that we have the largest news staff of any media in our area.” Prior experience would indicate that a large staff and a shrinking news hole don’t coexist nicely. Check out the comments on the story, which mostly rip the paper for cutting back on space.

Miscellany

Valleywag observes that the combined wealth of Google’s co-founders now exceeds the value of the entire US newspaper industry. Larry Page and Sergey Brin are now worth $16 billion each, compared to the $20 billion valuation Wall Street assigns to newspapers and their subsidiaries, including test prep and broadcasting businesses. 

And Finally…

Our Google Alert filter caught John McIntyre in its webbing this week, and we quickly added him to our RSS reader. McIntyre is director of the copy desk at the Baltimore Sun and a former president of the American Copy Editors Society {note: “Editors” is not possessive). His meticulously edited blog features such gems as a recent entry on the mechanics of courtesy titles such as “Mr.” and “Professor” – did you know that incarcerated criminals aren’t entitled to be called “Mr.” but may regain the title once probation has expired? -and a clever paragraph on last week’s National Punctuation Day that consists of a single sentence in which McIntyre uses all 13 forms of punctuation. Newspaper editors know that nothing elicits more reader comment than issues of spelling, punctuation and usage; ergo, McIntyre has his fingers on the pulse of the readers.

Not to harp on The Politico, but we continue to be impressed by the stunning success of this for-profit venture whose value is built on delivering – gasp! – quality journalism. To those who mourn the newspaper industry’s implosion as foreshadowing the end of public service reporting, we point to this news boutique as an example of What Might Be. MediaBistro’s Fishbowl NY has a brief but interesting interview with Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei, who comments on the appeal of his unique business model. The focused mission is to “provide the fastest, smartest, most essential coverage of Congress, the White House, politics and those who try to influence all three.” And not to rely on classified advertising, which is one reason things are going so well.

A vandal disrupted distribution of the Boston Herald Wednesday morning, just two weeks before the paper plans to shut down its printing plant and outsource the operations to the west. Someone who apparently knew what he or she was doing cut several belts and wires on collating machines. Workers scrambled to compensate, but not all subscribers got their Heralds that day. The unions denounced the vandal’s actions. Members stand to get severance benefits – but only if the transition to the new printer goes smoothly.

Steve Outing comments on NYU journalism professor and Pressthink blogger Jay Rosen’s initiative to get his Twitter followers to submit accounts of reporters who document untruths by the McCain presidential campaign. You can see some of the results here. Outing things social networks are a great way for people who share common interests to quickly self-organize around a common goal, such as the one defined by Rosen. Unfortunately, the tools can also be misused. In an update, Outing notes that some troublemakers are now trying to subvert the effort.

Somebody help this guy, if you know him. He needs a hug.

Appropriately named columnist Joe Grimm has useful advice for a newspaper veteran who fears he’s about to lose his job. 

Layoff Log

News has been trickling out about planned cuts at the Raleigh News & Observer, but some numbers are finally available: 53 people, including 20 newsroom staffers. Among the notables leaving the N&O: TV columnist Danny Hooley, illustrator Grey Blackwell, consumer-affairs columnist Vicki Lee Parker and book editor Marcy Smith. Cartoonist Dwane Powell, who earlier said he would scale back to part-time but keep his job, has also decided to leave. Most of the cuts were achieved through buyouts, but some layoffs were necessary. The N&O already cut 40 positions earlier this year.

Pittsburgh’s largest newspaper, the Post-Gazette, told its staff to expect layoffs soon. Meetings between management and union leaders to discuss the specifics begin next week. The closure of a major department store (and advertiser) downtown hasn’t helped. Stay tuned.

The Kenosha (Wisc.) News plans to lay off three full-time and three part-time employees, all from editorial.

The Tacoma News Tribune will lay off one employee and buy out 17 others in continuing reductions that have reduced its workforce by 100 people this year.

And Finally… 

How appropriate. Now you can generate your own tombstone messages for free. Tombstone Generator creator J. J. Chandler has left plenty of space for you to wax eloquent about the dearly departed – or those whom you wish would depart. 

Twitter and live blogging are beginning to raise interesting frictions between first amendment freedoms and people’s right to privacy. Rocky Mountain News reporter Berny Morson sparked outrage last week by Twittering the funeral of three-year-old Marten Kudlis, who died when a pickup truck slammed into an ice cream shop in Aurora, Colo. This week, there’s a lively debate on Mark Glaser’s Media Shift page over New York University journalism student Alana Taylor’s negative blog comments about one of her professors. After Taylor’s comments appeared, the professor instituted a ban on blogging about what went on in her classroom, although she later modified that to ban only live blogging.

Five years ago, these issues didn’t exist. Ordinary people couldn’t post to the Web very easily, so publishing was limited to an elite few. Today, anyone with a computer can be a publisher, which means that events and conversations that would have once been presumed private may now be considered on the record if one party chooses to make them public. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have both recently found this out the hard way.

In the case of tweeting a funeral, the issue is more one of bad taste than of privacy. The NYU incident is more complex because it involves a journalism professor trying to limit the speech of her own students. Is an NYU class considered restricted because the school is private? Or is a journalism class inherently open because it would be hypocritical to close it? What rules apply to other classes? How about conversations between two strangers on a street corner? Or bad behavior in public by a person who isn’t a public figure?  These interactions have been off-the-record in the past because it wasn’t worth anyone’s time and effort to report them. That’s not the case any more, and that opens up a whole can of worms that we’ll be unraveling for years.

Miscellany

New York Times Co. becomes the second media company in the past week to report that year-over-year sales declines in August weren’t as steep as in previous months. The company’s advertising revenue slipped 16% compared to August, 2007. That’s a bit better than the 18% declines reported in June and July. Online ad revenue was also up, reversing a recent trend. Analysts are cautioning against too much optimism, though. They say that one month doesn’t make a trend and the current chaos in the financial industry is likely to hit newspapers hard. That’s because so many newspapers are so highly leveraged. Outsell analyst Ken Doctor points out that the only hope for survival at some of these companies is to find new sources of cash. With financial institutions reining in their lending activities, that reality is going to hit highly leveraged companies like Tribune Co. hard, he notes.

Will the Newark Star-Ledger be the next major newspaper to go under? That’s what the publisher  is threatening.  George Arwady sent a terse memo to employees early this week saying that if the company can’t eliminate 200 positions and gain several union concessions, it will close on Jan. 5, 2009. Editor & Publisher has the memo. The editor of the Star-Ledger isn’t saying much, but the newspaper is reportedly far short of its goal of eliminating 100 newsroom positions.

Google considers itself a partner to publishers, but some who ponder this relationship are reminded of Woody Allen’s quote: “The lion shall lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.”  The New York Times has a story about one such partner, Dan Savage, who built a nice business converting Google AdWords to paid links on his directory site.  His business collapsed when Google suddenly decided to increase his prices fifteenfold.  The Times presses Google for an explanation of its policy change and comes up frustrated.

Alan Mutter sings the praises of bankruptcy protection as one cure for the ills afflicting distressed newspaper owners.  Bankruptcy has a poisonous connotation, but it’s actually an opportunity for businesses to renegotiate debt, discard union contracts and get the business back on its feet.  Sure, a company’s credit rating is destroyed in a bankruptcy action, but that’s happening already as newspaper owners fail to meet debt obligations.  Mutter focuses in particular on Philadelphia Media Holdings, which is teetering on the brink of insolvency, having already missed a key debt payment.  Mutter’s opinion isn’t universally shared. David Cay Johnston tells Romenesko that legal protection shouldn’t be a refuge for nepotism and lousy management. Both are the case with Philadelphia Holdings, he writes.

News Corp. will boost subscription revenue from The Wall Street Journal, its Web site and Dow Jones by more than $300 million annually over the next two to three years, according to Bloomberg. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch is quoted as saying the subscription services are “grossly undersold.” How he’s going to improve them that dramatically at a time of declining circulation is anyone’s guess.

Layoff Log

• The Kansas City Star will lay off about 30 employees on top of the 24 who accepted the newspaper’s early-buyout offer. It will also look into outsourcing its financial functions to Indian firm Infosys. The cuts are in addition to the 120 layoffs announced three months ago.
• The Miami Herald is also laying off more employees on top of cuts previously announced. Eighty full- and part-time employees will be asked to leave and 40 vacant positions will be eliminated. The Herald cut 250 positions just three months ago.

At Poynter Online, Jon Greenberg writes of the remarkable impact of a letter written by longtime Wasilla, Alaska resident Anne Kilkenny about her former neighbor and current Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.

The letter (you can find it here, along with several hundred comments) lays out in plain language Palin’s record as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska. Kilkenny is quite open about her distaste for Palin (who was known as “Sarah Barracuda” in high school), but also takes pains to point out Palin’s intelligence, ambition and political savvy. Most important is that the letter is factually detailed. Kilkenny, who calls herself “just a housewife,” assembled details about Palin’s administration from years of attending city council meetings and reading local newspapers. She even disclaims facts of which she is unsure. It’s not the work of a professional reporter, but it’s just as good in its own way.

Greenberg sees big potential in citizen reporters like Anne Kilkenny and wonders why publishers don’t do more with them. “Non-journalists can be invaluable when they use their own eyes and ears to report what they see — but they rarely deliver on that promise. Why? In my experience, most citizens worry that they are not up to the task of producing objective journalism. Worse still, they believe that if they are going to throw their words into the public arena, they must be an advocate for something.” Greenberg goes on to recommend that news organizations Adapt their culture and processes to leverage citizen journalist contributions.

Some veteran journalists might turn up their noses at Kilkenny’s 2,500-word essay. It is subjective and judgmental in some cases, and the writer has probably edited facts to make a point. It is, however, also very enlightening because it comes from someone who has lived and worked with the candidate for years. The language is homespun simple. Kilkenny, who hasn’t had a day of journalism training, turns in a pretty good piece of journalism. That’s because she has a perspective that no journalist could duplicate, even with hundreds of interviews.

Strangely, the Kilkenny e-mail has received relatively little mainstream media attention. Some of the media has questioned her facts and biases. Those are legitimate questions, but not a good reason to ignore the value of what Kilkenny has to say. Perhaps the fact that the writer is “just a housewife” disqualifies her from being taken seriously in the eyes of journalism pros. Yet it seems to us that there’s an opportunity for news organizations to embrace these citizen activists and to apply professional journalistic techniques to vet their work and surround it with context. Anne Kilkenny doesn’t make journalism irrelevant; she actually makes it richer. Judging by the number of comments on the Mudlfats blog, this citizen has touched a nerve. Isn’t that the essence of what good journalism tries to accomplish?

If You Send Them Away, They Will Come

How counterintuitive is this? Scott Karp analyzes Nielsen’s top 30 news sites for May and June according to how often visitors visit and how long they stay. The breakaway winner is Drudge Report, a site that does almost nothing but link to other sites. Drudge had more than double the sessions-per-person of any other news site in May and nearly four times the performance of the highest-rated newspaper site. Drudge’s audience also spent an average of nearly an hour on the site in June. The newspaper site that came closest was The New York Times at 29 minutes.

What’s the lesson? Outbound links are a good strategy. Sites that aggregate and contextualize content from around the Internet gain search engine visibility, link love from others and attention from readers who value their efficiency. This isn’t say to say original reporting isn’t important. News executives often snub Drudge and others like it as parasites on their original work. But at an estimated 500 million monthly page views and 1.75 million daily viewers, this parasite appears to have gained a following. Could your news organization learn from this success without sacrificing your mandate?

The Future of the Times

Reader Arthur Piccolo has been perturbed by The New York Times’ recent decision to combine sections, as well as other cost-cutting initiatives at the paper of record. He offers his perspective on what the Times will look like in 2015. Here’s a summary. You can download the PDF here.

• All print articles will be shortened versions of on-line content, with each ending with an Internet address and other online pointers.
• Staff will be dispersed to their homes and field; headquarters staff will be condensed to a small core of editors and production people.
• The organization will have relationships with lots of domain experts who will contribute insight regularly on pressing topics. There will be a large stringer network.
• Virtually every story on-line will contain rich audio and/or video elements.
• “Community correspondents” will feed regional and local information to the website. Subscribers will have the ability to localize their version of the Times.
• The Times will produce branded on-line versions underwritten by large corporations and even countries.
• The print edition will be kept alive for branding but not for profits.
• The Times will seek to become a broadcast business to rival the top TV and radio networks.

Most of these predictions are pretty safe. This is the direction visionary newspapers are already taking. We’re not so sure about the branded editions sponsored by corporations, though.

Layoff Log

• The Akron Beacon Journal has given the Newspaper Guild notice of its intention to lay off 11 people, including five reporters, three copy editors, a photographer, an artist and a clerk.
• The Northern Michigan Review will cut 11 jobs at newspapers in Petoskey, Gaylord and Charlevoix, as well its PhoneGuide. “Our future forecast remains optimistic,” the president and publisher said.
• The Daytona Beach News-Journal announced a second round of layoffs, cutting 41 jobs on top of 99 eliminated three months ago. The paper’s parent company, which employs more than 600 people, is for sale, but there have been no takers. “The company’s financial performance has taken a dramatic turn for the worse over the past few months,” said Jim Hopson, News-Journal chief executive manager.
• The Los Angeles Timeslaid off 50 people in its IT organization but didn’t bother to tell anyone outside the company about it. At least that’s what pressman Edward Padgett says. A redesign of the paper is coming, and Padgett says there is speculation that the California section will be consolidated into the main news section and Business will be merged into Sports. That could result in the elimination of the second shift production on some days, which would probably mean more layoffs.

Investors were all aflutter at the news late last week that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim had purchased a 6% interest in The New York Times Co. Slim, whom Forbes estimates to be the world’s second richest man behind Warren Buffett, has made his fortune principally by buying low and selling high. It helps that he owns one of the world’s largest privatized monopolies, Telefonos de Mexico, which he acquired in 1990.

Shares of NYT jumped nearly 15% on Thursday on the news, helped by Slim’s statement to reporters that his interest in the publisher was “purely financial.” Are newspaper stocks finally going to be perceived as the bargain investors believe them to be? Probably not, argues The Wall Street Journal‘s Martin Peers. Writing in Thursday’s “Heard on the Street” column, Peers notes past failures by investors who tried to wrest control of the Times company from the controlling Ochs/Sulzberger family. He also brings up Slim’s $2 billion bet on failed retailer CompUSA as an example of the billionaire’s fallibility. Finally, he points to the lofty price/earnings ration of the NYT Co. – more than 20 right now – as reason to “see Thursday’s pop in Times stock as a selling opportunity.”

Tech Publisher Bucked Trend, Cashed in With Print

In the publishing market for technology enthusiasts, print has almost evaporated. That’s what makes O’Reilly Media’s Make magazine so remarkable. Make was launched well after the destruction of the technology print media had already begun. The publishers thought there was value that print brought to their target audience of tinkerers that couldn’t be reproduced on a Web page. Not that the Internet isn’t important. In fact, most of Make‘s circulation development has been done on line. The publication also hosts a series of popular fairs where readers show off their inventions. But in a market that has largely turned up its nose at print, Make is a notable – and profitable – exception.

In this podcast, publisher and editor Dale Dougherty tells of the counter-intuitive wisdom that led to the creation of the Make brand. The speech is only 17 minutes long, but it will remind you of the value that print still brings to the publishing equation when applied sensibly.

Rx for Newspaper Websites

Mark Potts has a set of idea for fixing newspaper websites that are well worth reading. Potts recently wrapped up an engagement with Philly.com in which he says staff attempted to break the mold with some success. What is the mold of newspaper websites? Too much information crammed into too little space and surrounded by blinking banners ads. This is a legacy of the print mentality, Potts writes. Why do newspapers still organize everything by news/features/sports/metro/arts when they don’t have to be tied to such rigid structure on the Web? And what’s with all the banner ads, which are the least effective form of online advertising? Why not do more with targeted text ads and search? Again, the legacy mentality favors display ads, he says.

Potts recommends that publishers take more risks and look at the example of the online pure-plays for inspiration. Web publishers think nothing about launching mobile services, for instance, and if the gamble doesn’t pay off, they just shrug. Newspaper publishers, on the other hand, research any new initiative to death and then finally launch something that’s uninspired and late. Classified ads are dead, Potts says. Deal with it. And newspaper sites still aren’t local enough. Aggregate and outsource content to readers. Lively debate ensues in the comments section.

Easy Come, Easy Go

Novato, Calif.’s hometown newspaper since 1922 is no more. The Advance shut down last week, citing the usual factors: tough economy, stiff online competition, spiraling costs. The paper hadn’t made a profit in nine years. An unbylined announcement ticks off a list of investments and innovations the Advance undertook in an effort to stay afloat – adding staff, sectionalizing and boosting circulation among others – but the efforts were fruitless. The paper’s demise apparently wasn’t for lack of quality. It won the California Newspaper Publishers Association’s highest award four consecutive years through 2006.

Meanwhile, the state with the toughest economy in the nation saw the launch of a new title. The successful Florida Weekly will come to Naples on Oct. 2. The lifestyle-oriented tabloid covers news, arts and entertainment, dining, regional business, and real estate. The original Florida Weekly of Ft. Myers has a readership of 50,000, according to Editor & Publisher. Naples Florida Weekly will be distributed through more than 500 newsstands and by mail.

Miscellany

Tragedy in San Francisco: the long-suffering Chronicle yesterday published obituaries for several of its Sunday comics. Among the deceased are Mister Boffo, the Fusco Brothers, Brevity, Tokyopop and Sherman’s Lagoon. Dilbert is also moving. The decision was guided by more than 13,000 responses to a poll conducted this summer. “We know that readers feel strongly about comics,” an unnamed Chron editor writes. Indeed they do.

The Bowling Green Daily News is an afternoon daily that has adopted a “print first” strategy. Its audience isn’t terribly Internet-savvy and the afternoon publishing schedule limits its timeliness. What’s more, the paper is still growing revenue. The managing editor sees no reason to favor a website because print pays the bills. Moreover, the capital investment required to launch a competing website and put a staff in place is prohibitive, he says. He is on drugs.

The Sacramento Bee is cutting staff by 7% on top of an earlier round of cuts in June. This time, a buyout offer enticed 87 people to leave the company, including 23 newsroom employees. The editorial department had been largely spared from the June round of cuts, but the reduction took a bigger toll, with the features department along losing 11 people. Bee executives said they didn’t know if more cutbacks would be needed.

Gannett Blog reports on an innovative idea by the Pensacola News Journal: it’s distributing newsstand copies with a distinctive front page. The idea is to attract the generally younger group of readers that buys newspapers on impulse. Single-copy sales are about 18% of the Pensacola paper’s circulation, according to Gannett Blog. Commenters generally approve of the idea.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram plans to sell its 88-year-old headquarters building at the northwest corner of Seventh and Taylor streets. Its 184,000 sq. ft. are simply more than the shrinking newspapers needs, the publisher says.

The Rushville (Inc.) Republican joins the ranks of newspapers that are cutting out Monday editions. The move will save enough money to enable the paper to avoid layoffs, at least for now.

And Finally…

While strolling through Pet Rock 2008, the annual festival in east-central Massachusetts that brings hundreds of dog owners together in a celebration of their pooches, we were struck by the old cliche that dog owners and their pets frequently look alike. We started snapping examples where we thought this  was true. While the cliche is by no means universally valid, there are some striking similarities in some cases. Just for fun, here are a few examples. Do you have any of your own? Send us a link to the online photos or post them in the comments section and we’ll add them to our Flickr slideshow.

The Politico will partner with several newspapers to deliver political news in exchange for ad placements. The Politico will also sell ads to national advertisers that will be placed in partner newspapers and sites in return for a share of revenue. Early partners include the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Philadelphia Inquirer, Denver Post, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. 

People who complain that the implosion of the newspaper industry will create a vacuum in American democracy should perhaps take a harder look at The Politico. Launched just a little over 18 months ago as a specialized print/online/broadcast hybrid focused exclusively on politics, The Politico is reportedly profitable and has become a must-read for political junkies. Those folks are pretty desirable to advertisers. The company claims that it has more high-income and highly educated readers than Forbes.com or WSJ.com. 

Lindsey McPherson of American Journalism Review takes a look at The Politco’s success. The venture has succeeded in attracting top journalists who are, by most accounts, turning out first-class work. While The Politico makes most of its revenue from a print edition distributed on an unusual schedule (three days a week, but only when Congress is in session), its business model is clearly to grow in all media in which it operates. The site features a mish-mash of articles, blogs, video and slide shows. While that kind of stuff is pretty typical fare for all newspaper sites these days, The Politico is different. Its tight focus on politics gives it a kind of nudge-nudge insider feel that adds edginess to its videos and thematic slide shows. You get the feeling that these guys know the inside scoop. 

The Politico’s mission statement is a matter-of-fact explanation of why the collapse of newspapers has created a need for ventures like this. Born amid the early rounds of newspaper layoffs, the company promotes its journalists as brands, even encouraging them to peddle their work elsewhere. “Today, many of the reporters having the most impact are those whose work carries a unique signature, who add a distinct voice to the public conversation,” the mission statement says. “Their work, in other words, matters more than where they work.” The AJR article quotes several top reporters from major newspapers praising The Politico.

Game-changer

One of the most common complaints we hear about the death spiral of American newspapers is that it will leave an information gap. Citizens will no longer have the benefit of big Washington bureaus to investigate the government and keep government honest. While it’s true that decimated Capitol Hill news staffs will no longer send 100 journalists to cover the same Presidential press conference, there’s reason to take note of new models like The Politico’s.

Perhaps what will emerge is highly specialized news organizations that publish in whatever media make sense and that do one thing very well. Sites like Talking Points Memo and The Smoking Gun are already demonstrating that this model can work. These organizations will provide the same watchdog function as newspapers, but they won’t be distracted by the need to cover high school sports as well as Congressional committee meetings. As long as they attract the right audiences, the ad dollars will emerge to support them.

The idea of branding journalists ahead of media organizations is particularly noteworthy. We’re often asked what the future holds for professional journalists. Will there even be journalism jobs in the future? The answer is a resounding yes, but the new realities of the more competitive market will force journalists to be faster on their feet and more responsive. The cushy staff jobs are going away, and good riddance to them. There will still be a need and a market for good reporters, but the people who succeed will be the ones who work in a variety of media for a variety of bosses, moving quickly between assignments and selling to the highest bidder. They will be adept at promoting themselves as the brand rather than their employers. A few prominent journalists have done this in the past. In the future, nearly all will need to work this way. The Politico recognizes this and that’s why it may be an early glimpse at the future of news media.

Googling the Morgue

Continuing on its campaign to digitize the known body of human knowledge so that it can sell ads against it, Google announced a campaign to scan and index pre-digital age newspapers. The company has partnered with about 100 newspapers to digitize their archives. The venture will use technology developed for Google’s two-year-old book scanning project that figures out what articles are about and serves other relevant content – as well as ads – against them. Google used the 1969 moon walk as an example of the kind of pre-Internet content it will make available to the world. We just hope it doesn’t fail to include this classic from The Onion.

Newspaper In Your Pocket – Almost

Plastic Logic display

E-ink continues to evolve to the applause of a newspaper industry desperately seeking an alternative to costly newsprint. Plastic Logic used the Demo conference to introduce its electronic newspaper reader.  The device is slim, lightweight and big enough to display a full page of a newspaper. The Plastic Logic Reader uses a flexible plastic display that’s about the size of a standard sheet of paper, or 2.5 times as large as Amazon’s Kindle.  The big advantage is the slim profile and light weight. The reader comes the closest of any electronic device to being truly portable. However, it hasn’t yet achieved the Holy Grail of the e-ink industry: a display you can roll up and stash in your pocket. That’s coming, officials say, but it’ll be at least a couple of more years. E-Ink Corp. has been working toward this goal for more than a decade and its research is now bearing some commercial fruit. You can see a demo video on Plastic Logic’s home page.

And Finally…

Ink-stained wretches who complain that industry layoffs hit working stiffs the hardest can perhaps take some satisfaction in Gannett’s announcement of consolidation moves that will eliminate 100 management positions around the company. Circulation, finance and some other functions that are common across Gannett properties will be merged into regional groups, with some managers getting promotions and others getting the door. The cuts are in addition to the 1,000 people just laid off.

McClatchy Planning to Go Private?

Alan Mutter blows the whistle on some goings-on at McClatchy that could be a precursor to an effort to take the company private. The company filed a document with the SEC late on Friday stating that CEO Gary Pruitt had resigned as one of the four directors of the family trusts that control McClatchy stock. There are three possible reasons for the move, Mutter theorizes: The family plans to take the company private; Pruitt himself plans to buy the company; or Pruitt is about to be shown the door.

Mutter’s numbers indicate that it wouldn’t cost a whole lot for McClatchy to buy out its shareholders at a 20% prevmium to the company’s depressed stock price and that it could use funds now being applied to shareholder dividends to pay down its $2.1 billion debt. This makes a leveraged buyout appealing if the buyers truly believe in the value of a newspaper business. It would also likely spark a protest by jilted shareholders, who would be left with a few pennies on the dollar as a result of McClatchy’s 88% stock decline over the last two years. Mutter knows finance and his analysis is convincing. Something big is probably brewing at McClatchy (for the record, the company told the Sacramento Bee that the move is a routine adjustment).

Miscellany

We mentioned last week that the Riverside Press-Enterprise of southern California was planning to lay off 30 people. What we didn’t know is that the paper has also had 120 employees accept its buyout offer. That brings to 413 the number of A.H. Belo employees who have opted for buyouts. It’s not clear what the total employment is at the Press-Enterprise. A listing on Manta says 700 but Spoke says it’s over 1,000. If Manta is correct, then the departure of 150 staff is a big hit.